Infinitive or Gerund?

After some verbs, either an –ing forms or an infinitive can be used.
Advise           forbid                   hear               prefer               start
Allow             forget                   intend            propose          stop
Can’t bear      go                        like                 regret               try
Begin             go on                   love               remember        watch
Continue        hate                    permit           see

Remember and forget

Remember/forget + -ing forms looks back at the past – at things that one did.
Forget……ing is used mostly in the phrase I’ll never forget…..ing, and expressions eith similar meaning.
Remember/forget + infinitive looks forward in time-at things one still has or still had to at the moment of remembering or forgetting.
I forgot to buy the soap.

Go on

Go on + -ing forms means continue
Go on + infinitives refers to a change of activity
She stopped talking about that and went on to describe her other problems.

Regret

Regret + -ing form looks back at the past-at something that one is sorry that one did.
Regret + infinitive is used mostly in announcements of bad news.

Try

To talk about making an experiment-doing something to see what will happen-we use try + -ing.
To talk about making an effort to do something difficult,we use either try + infinitive or try + -ing.

Learn and teach

These verbs (and others with similar meanings) are followed by –ing forms mostly when we are referring to lessons or subjects of study.
She goes to college twice a week to learn typing.
Infinitives are preferred when we talk about the result of the study-about successfully learning a skill.
She learnt to read German at school, but she learnt to speak it in Germany.

Like, love, hate and prefer

After these four verbs, both infinitives and –ing forms can often be used without a great difference of meaning.
After would like, would prefer, would hate and would love, infinitives are most often used.

Begin and start

Begin and start can be followed by infinitives or –ing forms. Usually there is no important difference.
After progressive forms of begin and start, infinitives are preferred.
I’m beginning to learn karate.
Infinitives are also preferred with understand,, realize and know.
He started to realize that if you wanted to eat you had to work.

Attempt, intend, continue, can’t bear, be accustomed to, be committed to

After these words and expressions we can generally use either an –ing form or infinitive without much difference of meaning.