Gerunds vs Infinitives: Which English Verbs Take ‘-ing’ and Which Take ‘to’

You’ve learned the tenses. You can conjugate confidently. And then a sentence like “I’m looking forward to see you” slips out, and a native speaker pauses for half a second before it clicks. The fix wasn’t grammar you forgot — it’s a pattern you never memorized: which verbs pull a gerund (-ing) after them, and which demand an infinitive (to + verb).

There’s no single rule that covers every case — English just doesn’t work that way. But there is a manageable set of patterns, and once you’ve drilled them a few times, your ear starts catching the wrong one before you even finish the sentence.

The Core Idea, in One Sentence

Some verbs are followed by a gerund (enjoy swimming), some by an infinitive (want to swim), a handful can take either with no real change in meaning, and a tiny but important group changes meaning depending on which one you pick. Let’s go through each group with examples you can actually reuse.

Verbs That Always Take the Gerund

These verbs treat the action as a thing — almost like a noun — so they take the -ing form. The most common ones to know cold:

• enjoy, love, like (in some uses) — I enjoy cooking on Sundays.
• finish, stop, quit — She finished writing the report.
• avoid, deny, risk — He avoided answering the question.
• suggest, recommend, consider — I’d suggest booking early.
• keep, continue (informal), practice — Keep practicing — you’re close.
• mind, miss, imagine — Do you mind waiting a moment?

A useful trick: most phrasal verbs and prepositional expressions also take the gerund, because grammatically what follows a preposition is treated as a noun. That’s why it’s “look forward to seeing you”, not “to see you” — to here is a preposition, not part of an infinitive. Same logic applies to give up smoking, put off leaving, and be interested in learning.

Verbs That Always Take the Infinitive

These verbs usually describe a plan, a decision, a hope, or something not yet happening — so they look ahead with to + verb:

• want, hope, wish, plan — We hope to visit next year.
• decide, agree, promise, offer — They agreed to meet on Friday.
• need, deserve, afford — You deserve to rest.
• learn, manage, fail, refuse — He refused to apologize.
• pretend, seem, appear — She seemed to know everyone.

If you’re ever unsure, ask whether the verb points toward something future or hypothetical (want, plan, decide) rather than something ongoing or already happening (enjoy, keep, finish). It’s not a perfect test, but it catches a surprising number of cases.

Verbs That Accept Either, With No Real Change

A small group genuinely doesn’t mind which form follows, and native speakers use both interchangeably:

• begin, start — It began raining / It began to rain.
• continue — She continued working / to work.
• like, love, hate, prefer (in general statements) — I like swimming / to swim.
• intend — We intend staying / to stay a week.

One nuance worth knowing: with like, love, and hate, British English leans slightly toward the gerund for general preferences (“I like reading”) and the infinitive for a specific, one-off occasion (“I’d like to read that book you mentioned”). It’s a tendency, not a hard rule, so don’t lose sleep over it.

The Tricky Three: Stop, Remember, Forget

This is the group that actually changes meaning depending on which form you use — and it’s worth memorizing with examples rather than rules, because the logic is easy to mix up under pressure.

• Stop + gerund = ending a habit or activity. I stopped drinking coffee after lunch. (The coffee-drinking itself ends.)
• Stop + infinitive = pausing one action in order to do another. I stopped to drink coffee. (I was doing something else, and paused for the coffee.)
• Remember/forget + gerund = a memory of something that already happened. I remember meeting her at the conference.
• Remember/forget + infinitive = a task you did or didn’t do. I forgot to call her back.

A handy shortcut: the gerund version looks backward (a memory, a habit that existed), and the infinitive version looks forward (a task to complete, or an action interrupted partway through).

When There’s a Person in the Middle

Some verbs change shape entirely once you add a person as the object. Want, expect, tell, ask, remind, invite, warn and similar verbs take person + infinitive, never a gerund:

• I want you to call me tonight. (not “I want you calling me”)
• She reminded him to lock the door.
• They invited us to join the trip.

This pattern trips up learners whose first language uses a subjunctive-style clause here instead (Spanish’s “quiero que vengas” has no literal English equivalent — it becomes “I want you to come”).

How to Actually Make This Stick

Reading a list like this helps for about a day. What makes it permanent is using the verbs in your own sentences, out loud, with someone who can correct you in real time — a textbook can’t tell you that “I’m looking forward to see you” needs fixing, but a teacher will catch it mid-sentence and the correction tends to stay with you. If you want to find out where your English actually stands before diving into patterns like this one, Parlazo’s free level test takes a few minutes and gives you an honest starting point; from there, a 1-on-1 lesson with a native tutor is the fastest way to turn a list of rules into instinct.

A Quick Self-Test

Try finishing these before scrolling back up: “She suggested ___ (go) earlier.” / “We decided ___ (not go) after all.” / “I’ll never forget ___ (see) the northern lights.” / “Don’t forget ___ (lock) the car.” If you got all four, you’ve got the core pattern down — the rest is just vocabulary.