A2

Verbs Followed by Infinitive or -ING form

There are not many rules to say which verb goes with infinitive or -ING form.

In general, we have these three big groups:

  • Verbs indicating likes and dislikes go with -ING form: like, love, hate, don't mind, fancy, feel like, can't stand...
  • After prepositions: -ING form
  • Verbs inidicating desire and/or command go with infinitive: want, hope, decide, expect, need, ask, choose, etc.

There is a general tendency to distinguish between -ing form and infinitive:

  • Infinitives are usually referred to future actions
  • -ing forms are usually connected to past or present actions

Let's have these two sentences:

I like playing tennis (first I play then I like it; playing tennis is reffered to a past action which comes up to now)

I'd like to play tennis (first I like, I want to do something and then I do it; to play is referred to a future action)

This link gives some clues about when you use gerund or infinitive; click here infinitive or -ing

Here you are a list of adjectives followed by prepositions so you must use -ING like in this example:

She is good at playing chess.  

The best way to learn this grammar point is by doing many exercises. exercise 1, exercise 2, exercise 3, exercise 4

To finish with, here you have some videos with songs using gerund or infinitive.