Gerund or Infinitive?
Gerunds are verbs ending in -ing that act as nouns in a sentence. They take on roles like subject, object, or complement.
An infinitive is the base form of a verb , usually preceded by “to” (e.g., to eat, to sleep), acting as a noun, adjective, or adverb rather than the main conjugated verb.
Gerunds
We use gerunds (verb + ing):
- After certain verbs – I enjoy singing.
- After prepositions – I drank a cup of coffee before leaving.
- As the subject or object of a sentence – Swimming is good exercise.
to-infinitive
We use ‘to’ + infinitive:
- After certain verbs – We decided to leave.
- After many adjectives – It’s difficult to get up early.
- To show purpose – I came to London to study English.
Bare infinitive
We use the bare infinitive (the infinitive without ‘to’):
- After modal verbs – I can meet you at six o’clock.
- After ‘let’, ‘make’ and (sometimes) ‘help’ – The teacher let us leave early.
- After some verbs of perception (see, watch, hear, notice, feel, sense) – I watched her walk away.
- After expressions with ‘why’ – Why go out the night before an exam?
