Introduction

Gerunds and infinitives are very common in the English language.

There're five rules to follow when we use gerunds or infinitives.

Before going into the rules, it's first important to know what gerunds, infinitives and prepositions are.

Gerunds#

A gerund is a form of a verb that ends in -ing that is used as a noun. As you may know, a verb is a word that refers to actions or states of being, and a noun is a word that we use to refer to people, places, things, and ideas. A gerund is like a blend of verbs and nouns. It looks like a verb, but it acts like a noun. For example, the word swimming is an example of a gerund. We can use the word swimming in a sentence as a noun to refer to the act of moving around in water as in Swimming is fun. When used in sentences, gerunds are treated as third person singular nouns (like he, she, and it).

A gerund phrase is a phrase that includes the gerund, its objects, and its modifiers. Because they are derived from verbs, gerunds can take objects or be modified by adverbs. Just like noun phrases, gerund phrases are treated as nouns in sentences. In the sentence I love carefully collecting action figures, the gerund phrase carefully collecting action figures is the direct object (phrase).

Infinitives#

Infinitives are a form of verb that allow the word or a group of words to be used as a noun, adjective, or adverb. Every type of verb can be put into the infinitive form, even phrasal verbs.

Usually, infinitives are formed by adding the word to before the base form of the verb, as in to be, but sometimes the base form of the verb is used alone (we explain more in the next section).

The purpose of infinitives is to discuss an action in general instead of a specific instance of the action being done. For example, take a look at these two sentences:

• I need to win.

• Today, we win.

The first sentence uses the infinitive form of the verb win as a noun; the main verb of the sentence is actually “need.” The second sentence uses the standard form of win as an actionable verb. In the first sentence with the infinitive, the action of “winning” is not actually done; the sentence simply discusses the idea of winning. The second sentence, however, describes the action of winning.

Prepositions#

A preposition is a word or group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object.

Most commonly used prepositions

1. Of
2. In
3. To
4. For
5. With
6. On
7. At
8. From
9. By
10. About
11. As
12. Into
13. Like
14. Through
15. After
16. Over
17. Between
18. Out
19. Against
20. During
21. Without
22. Before
23. Under
24. Around
25. Among

Prepositions in English are highly idiomatic. Although there are some rules for usage, much preposition usage is dictated by fixed expressions. In these cases, it is best to memorize the phrase instead of the individual preposition.