Gerund or infinitive: Stop, Regret, and go on

What is Gerund?

The noun form of a verb ends in -ing.

For Example, Eating, dancing, playing etc.

What is Infinitive?

Any verb that is preceded by the word ‘to’ is an infinitive.

For Example, to wonder, to stare, to laugh, to follow, to believe, to run, to eat, etc.

Consider the sentences below:

Lots of people stop to buy a coffee on their way into work, but not me – I’ve stopped buying coffee.

What’s the difference? ‘stop buying’ or ‘stop to buy’.

In English we have a group of verbs that can be followed by the gerund or the infinitive, but with a change in meaning. We are going to look at three of them:

• Stop
• Regret
• Go on

I’ve stopped buying coffee.

I stopped to buy this morning.

What’s the difference?

In the sentence ‘I’ve stopped buying coffee’, the word stop is followed by the gerund. This means the activity in the gerund form stops, so, “I’ve stopped buying coffee because it’s so expensive. I’m drinking tea from now on.”

In the sentence ‘’I stopped to buy a coffee this morning”, the verb after the word ‘stop’ is in the infinitive, “I stopped to buy a coffee this morning” means that we stop doing one action in order to do the action in the infinitive. So, this morning I stopped walking in order to buy a coffee.

I regret telling you.

I regret to tell you.

In the sentence “I regret telling you that”, the word ‘regret’ is followed by the gerund. This is when we feel sorry about something we’ve done in the past. So “I regret telling you about that singing competition, now everybody knows I’ve entered!”

In the sentence “I regret to tell you that” the word ‘regret’ is followed by the infinitive. We use this when we’re about to give bad news. When you’re sorry for something you’re going to say. So, “We regret to tell you that your application has been unsuccessful”.

She went on talking.

She went on to talk.

So, What’s the difference. In the sentence “She went on talking” we use the gerund because the action continues “She went on talking for hours about gerunds and infinitives!”

In the sentence “She went on to talk” the verb is followed by the infinitive. This means the activity changes to another one. For Example, “She started talking about gerunds and infinitives and she went on to tell a joke.”