Mastering English Gerunds and Infinitives: A Comprehensive Guide

Posted on May 8, 2024 in English

Mastering English Gerunds and Infinitives

This guide explores the usage of gerunds and infinitives in English, focusing on specific verb patterns and common expressions.

Gerunds, formed by adding ‘-ing’ to a verb, act as nouns in a sentence. They often follow specific verbs and prepositions.

Enjoy, dislike, mind, love, hate, prefer, fancy
Admit, appreciate, avoid, be used to, can’t help, can’t stand, consider, delay, deny, discuss, end up, feel like, finish, forget, get used to, go, imagine, involve, it’s not worth, it’s no good, look forward to, mention, miss, postpone, practice, put off, recall, recommend, resent, resist, risk, spend time, stop, suggest, tolerate, understand

Infinitives, typically preceded by ‘to’, function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. They also follow specific verbs and expressions.

Afford, agree, appear, arrange, ask, care, claim, decide, demand, deserve, expect, fail, forget, have a chance, hesitate, learn, need, offer, plan, prepare, pretend, promise, refuse, seem, struggle, swear, threaten, volunteer, wait, want, wish, would like

Be able to, be about to, be going to, be likely to, be supposed to, have to, ought to, used to

Verbs with No Change: begin, can’t bear, continue, hate, intend, love, prefer, start
Verbs with Change in Tense: regret, remember, forget (past + ing; future/present: to + infinitive)
Stop: infinitive (to stop doing something); to + infinitive (to stop to do something else)
Try: + ing (trying a suggestion to solve a problem); to + infinitive (making an effort to do something)

The document provides various practice scenarios and example sentences to reinforce understanding of gerund and infinitive usage.

A list of relevant vocabulary words with definitions is included for further language enrichment.