Gerunds and Infinitives Exercises in English

The full grammar guide explains what gerunds and infinitives are and why English uses both. This page assumes you know that and gives you repetition instead: verb-sorting drills, meaning-contrast pairs like stop smoking vs stop to smoke, email rewrites for the look-forward-to trap, and production tasks where you build sentences from your own week. If an exercise here confuses you, read the matching guide section, then come straight back and do the drill again.

1. Talking About Hobbies And Routines — This is gerund territory: enjoy, love, don't mind, can't stand, and spend time all pair with -ing. Practise the frame 'I enjoy cooking, but I can't stand washing up afterwards.' If you catch yourself saying 'I enjoy to cook', say the corrected version aloud three times with three different hobbies.

2. Writing Work Emails With 'Look Forward To' — The to in look forward to is a preposition, so the verb after it takes -ing: 'I look forward to hearing from you.' The same trap hides in be used to, object to, and commit to. Open your sent emails, find three closing lines, and rewrite each one with this pattern.

3. Explaining Plans And Decisions — Decision verbs take the infinitive: decide to move, plan to apply, hope to finish, agree to help, refuse to pay. Practise a two-sentence frame: 'I've decided to change jobs. I'm planning to apply before Friday.' Watch out for suggest, which breaks the pattern — you suggest doing something, never suggest to do it.

4. Reporting Habits You Started Or Stopped — Use stop, start, keep, and give up: 'I stopped drinking coffee in March, but I keep checking my phone at night.' Be careful: 'I stopped to drink coffee' means you paused another activity in order to drink coffee. Say both versions aloud until the difference in meaning feels physical, not theoretical.

5. Using Adjectives Plus Prepositions, and 6. Checking Meaning-Changing Verbs — Adjective + preposition always takes -ing: interested in learning, good at explaining, tired of waiting, responsible for closing. For the meaning-change verbs, test yourself with time direction: remember doing looks back at a memory ('I remember locking the door'), while remember to do looks forward to a duty ('Remember to lock the door'). Try doing means run an experiment; try to do means attempt something difficult.

These frames are organized by pattern, not by topic, because the pattern is what you are drilling. Take one group per session. Say each frame with a true detail from your life, then write it down. If a frame only works when you copy it exactly, it is not learned yet — change the verb and the detail until it stays correct.

Gerund frames: 'I enjoy ___ing', 'I avoid ___ing at work', 'I can't help ___ing', 'It's worth ___ing', 'I'm thinking of ___ing'. Infinitive frames: 'I've decided to ___', 'I'm hoping to ___', 'I can't afford to ___', 'We agreed to ___'. Verb + object + to frames: 'She asked me to ___', 'Remind me to ___', 'They encouraged us to ___'. Preposition frames: 'I look forward to ___ing', 'Thanks for ___ing', 'I'm used to ___ing', 'after ___ing'. Meaning-change checks: say 'I stopped ___ing' and 'I stopped to ___' about the same day and notice how the story changes.

Each pair below fails for a different reason, so learn the reason, not just the fix. Example 1 — Weak: I enjoy to cook. Improved: I enjoy cooking. Enjoy belongs to the -ing family with avoid, finish, mind, and suggest; no infinitive can follow it. Example 2 — Weak: She decided studying online. Improved: She decided to study online. Decide is a decision verb, and decision and plan verbs — decide, plan, hope, agree, refuse — take to.

Example 3 — Weak: I look forward to meet you. Improved: I look forward to meeting you. This one is not about the verb at all: the to in look forward to is a preposition, and prepositions always take -ing. The same logic fixes 'be used to living' and 'object to paying'. Example 4 — Weak: He stopped to smoke last year. Improved: He stopped smoking last year, if you mean he quit. This is the only pair where the weak version is grammatical — it just means something else: he paused in order to smoke. With stop, remember, forget, try, and regret, choosing the wrong form does not sound foreign; it says the wrong thing.

When you review these pairs, cover the improved column and correct the weak sentence yourself, saying the rule aloud. Then write one parallel sentence with your own details: your hobby for example 1, your decision for example 2, your email for example 3, and one habit you actually quit for example 4.

By level: A2 learners should memorize five -ing verbs and five to verbs and write short true sentences with each — accuracy in ten verbs beats confusion in forty. B1 learners should add the meaning-change pairs and the preposition trap, especially look forward to for emails. B2 learners can work on suggest and recommend structures, passive gerunds like 'being asked', and the formal 'regret to inform'. C1 learners should control nuance: 'I regret to say' announces bad news, while 'I regret saying' apologizes for the past.

By role and exam: office workers get the fastest payoff from email patterns — look forward to, thank you for, responsible for. Students writing essays need 'it is worth noting' and 'this aims to show'. For IELTS, TOEFL, and CELPIP writing, examiners mark exactly these verb patterns under grammatical accuracy, so an error log of your own gerund and infinitive slips is one of the cheapest score improvements available. The patterns themselves are identical in Canadian, US, British, and Australian English; only spelling differs, such as practise as a verb in Canadian and British English.

1. From memory, sort these twenty verbs into -ing, to, or either: enjoy, decide, avoid, want, finish, hope, keep, plan, mind, agree, suggest, refuse, consider, offer, miss, manage, practise, promise, imagine, afford. Check against the page, and drill only the ones you misplaced. 2. Rewrite five real email closings using look forward to + -ing or thank you for + -ing. 3. Write paired sentences for stop, remember, try, and forget that show both meanings of each verb. 4. Take one real email or article, underline every gerund and infinitive, and label each with its rule. 5. Record sixty seconds about habits you started and stopped this year — this forces stop, start, keep, and give up under time pressure. 6. Keep a one-week error log of your own 'enjoy to' style slips, and rewrite each with the rule attached.

1. Translating from a first language that uses one verb form for both jobs — the English choice is decided by the first verb, so learn verbs in families, not one by one. 2. Treating the to in look forward to as an infinitive marker; it is a preposition, and 'I look forward to meet you' is the single most common error in learner emails. 3. Learning verb lists alphabetically instead of by pattern family — enjoy, avoid, finish, mind belong together in memory. 4. Assuming 'stop to smoke' is just a formal variant of 'stop smoking'; it changes the meaning completely. 5. Using the infinitive as a safe default when unsure — the -ing verbs are just as frequent, so guessing to loses half the time. 6. Practising recognition only; if you can pick the right answer but cannot produce it in your own sentence, the pattern will disappear under pressure.

Week one builds form control. Day 1: do the twenty-verb sort and mark your weak verbs. Day 2: write eight true sentences with -ing verbs only. Day 3: write eight with to verbs only. Day 4: drill the preposition trap — ten sentences with look forward to, be used to, interested in, thanks for. Day 5: rewrite the closings of three real emails. Day 6: do a mixed gap-fill from any exercise source and explain every answer aloud. Day 7: review your error log and re-drill only the verbs you missed.

Week two builds meaning control. Day 8: write and say both stop sentences about your own habits. Day 9: do the same for remember and forget — one memory sentence, one duty sentence each. Day 10: try doing vs try to do — describe one tech problem you solved with each. Day 11: practise regret in both forms, including the formal 'we regret to inform you'. Day 12: record a one-minute story of a habit you quit, using at least four target verbs. Day 13: write a short work message that naturally uses five patterns from this page. Day 14: repeat the Day 1 verb sort and compare — the difference is your evidence of progress.

The finish line for this topic is not a perfect worksheet score. It is typing 'I look forward to hearing from you' without pausing, and knowing instantly whether you stopped smoking or stopped to smoke. Keep drilling in the same order: choose the form, say the rule, write your own sentence. Ten verbs you can produce beat forty verbs you can only recognize.

Use these drills if the patterns still wobble after the two-week plan. Each one attacks a specific failure point rather than repeating the same worksheet.

Sort race: set a two-minute timer and re-sort the twenty verbs into their boxes; any verb you hesitate on goes into that day's sentences. Meaning-pair check: for stop, remember, try, and forget, say each version and then explain in plain words what actually happened — 'he quit' vs 'he paused'. If you cannot explain the difference, you do not own the pair yet. Email sweep: search your sent mail for 'look forward to' and check every verb that follows; fix the wrong ones and send yourself the corrected lines. Contrast dictation: have a partner read 'she stopped calling' and 'she stopped to call', and you say which one describes a breakup. Personal ladder: take one target verb and use it in a spoken sentence, a written message, and a question — three formats, same pattern.

After the drills, return to one real message you need to write this week and let the patterns do real work. Flexible use of six verbs is the goal, not a longer verb list.

Use this pack after the main plan. Each variation attacks a different weakness, so do them in order rather than choosing a favourite.

Variation 1: verb pattern sorting — Take twelve verbs from this page, sort them into -ing, to, and meaning-change boxes, then use any six in true sentences about this week. The sort proves recognition; the sentences prove production. If a sentence feels forced, the verb goes back into rotation. Variation 2: meaning-change practice — For stop, remember, try, and forget, write both versions about the same day: 'I stopped checking email at 6' and 'I stopped to check email on my way out'. Then say which one your day actually contained. This anchors the grammar to real memory instead of an abstract rule. Variation 3: work email sentence building — Draft a short, real email that uses look forward to + -ing, thank you for + -ing, and one decision verb with to. Read it aloud once for rhythm, then cut any sentence that exists only to show off a pattern.

Three-minute review: circle the sentence you would actually send or say, underline the one that still sounds translated, and rewrite only that one. Progress signs for this topic are specific: you self-correct 'enjoy to' before finishing the sentence, your email closings come out right the first time, and you can hear the difference between remember doing and remember to do when someone else speaks.