Mini grammar: gerund and infinitive in English

What are gerunds and infinitives in English and how to use them in practice

Mastering the English language can be challenging due to various reasons, starting from memorizing words to pronunciation. For many students, a particular obstacle arises in understanding the grammar of this foreign language, especially the peculiarities of how to deal with both gerunds and infinitives. Thus, let's try to delve into these concepts that seem to be tricky at first glance.

What's an infinitive? It is the base form of a verb, though in English, it is used in sentences with the particle to, as in to swim. The infinitive is employed to indicate an action or intention directed towards the future or when expressing a purpose.

On the other hand, a gerund is an impersonal verb form or a noun derived from a verb, always ending in -ing, such as swimming. In speech, the gerund is used to indicate an action or process.

Students of language courses are often confused when to use infinitive verbs and gerunds. To understand the differences, it's worth your while delving a bit deeper into the grammatical rules.

Gerund as the subject of a sentence

For example, you intend to say that swimming is good for health. It would seem that the infinitive to swim can be used here, but we are talking about an action, so we use the gerund and say “Swimming is good for health”. The same can be said about singing or walking, forming a gerund from the words sing and walk.

Learn how to use the gerund and the infinitive in English according to the grammar tables

In order to better understand English, you should have special tables from the Booyya course at hand, which list the words after which one or another form of the verb must be used. For example, the infinitive form is always used after the words such as tell, get, cause, offer and manage. In contrast, mind, miss, involve, enjoy, dislike and avoid will always be followed by the gerund. Does it seem to be difficult? Yes, it does, but thanks to the Booyya course, you will be able to easily overcome these obstacles, allowing us to tell you more about it below.

The infinitive is followed by the adjective

To separate the infinitive, a table is not always needed, because we always use this form of the verb after the adjectives. Here are some examples:

• So great to visit the zoo.
• Nice to visit Iceland again.
• It was exciting to hear this legendary song performed live.

Even if the adjective is followed by the word enough in the sentence, we will use the infinitive form of the verb together with to afterwards:

• I'm not tall enough to get that book off the top shelf.
• The test was easy enough to get a high score.

Master gerunds and infinitives rules with the Booyya course

Since most students struggle with using various verb forms, experienced educators have developed a comprehensive course to master this topic. Booyya's course will not only help you memorize the basic rules in just 9 lessons and reinforce the new information through examples and exercises. The course specifically focuses on commonly used verbs in the English language, such as: 

• remember;
• forget;
• try;
• regret;
• stop;
• go on; 
• mean;
• like; 
• hate.

Most importantly, each lesson includes easy-to-memorize tables to better absorb the new material, thus being useful for revision, especially during exam preparation. All the grammatical content is included in interactive textbooks accompanied with engaging videos and images. Presenting boring rules in this format enhances attention and prevents students from losing interest. What’s more, you can revisit the lessons again and again until you solidify your knowledge and fully comprehend English grammar.