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Your friend is planning their perfect weekend. Select ALL the sentences that correctly use the verb pattern (gerund or infinitive).

The correct answers are I enjoy relaxing on Sunday mornings and I want to visit the new café downtown.

The pattern is enjoy + gerund and want + to-infinitive. Errors like "enjoy to watch" or "want relaxing" mix up these patterns.

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Gerund

  • I enjoy reading. — ❌ I enjoy to read.
  • She's good at swimming. — ❌ She's good at to swim.
  • He avoids making eye contact. — gerund after avoid
  • Running is good exercise. — gerund as subject

A gerund is the -ing form of a verb functioning as a noun. It follows verbs like enjoy, avoid, finish, mind and ALL prepositions. Never use an infinitive where a gerund is required.

Rule: after a preposition (at, in, of, about, without) → always gerund. After enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest, deny → always gerund.

Infinitive

  • I want to go. — to-infinitive after want
  • She can swim. — bare infinitive after modal
  • Let me help. — bare infinitive after let
  • I enjoy to read. — wrong (enjoy takes gerund, not infinitive)

The infinitive has two forms: to-infinitive (to go) after verbs like want, decide, plan, hope; bare infinitive (go) after modals and causatives (let, make, help).

Rule: after want, need, decide, plan, hope, expect, agree, refuse → to-infinitive. After can, will, must, let, make → bare infinitive. After enjoy, avoid, finishgerund, NOT infinitive.

Verb

  • walk → walk / walks / walked / walked / walking (5 forms, regular)
  • go → go / goes / went / gone / going (5 forms, irregular)
  • be → am/is/are/was/were/be/being/been (8 forms)
  • can → can / could (modal: only 2 forms, no -s, no -ing)

A verb is the one word class every English sentence requires. Carries tense (when), aspect (duration), mood (attitude), and voice (active/passive). Regular verbs add -ed; ~200 irregular verbs have unpredictable past forms.

Key insight: fix your verbs and most grammar problems disappear. Wrong tense, wrong agreement, wrong form — verb errors account for the majority of grammatical mistakes.

A2 | Elementary | Pre-intermediate

  • I went to the cinema yesterday. — past simple
  • I have visited Paris twice. — present perfect (life experience)
  • If it rains, I'll take an umbrella. — first conditional
  • You should see a doctor. — modal for advice

These patterns are A2 — the second CEFR level. At A2 you move past survival phrases into real grammar: past tenses, the present perfect, basic conditionals, and modals for advice/obligation.

Marker: if you can describe yesterday and give simple advice, but struggle with abstractions or nuance, you're at A2.

Easy

  • She is a teacher. — one verb form, one rule
  • I have two cats. — basic possession, short sentence
  • He doesn't like coffee. — simple negation with do-support
  • Only one answer is clearly correct; distractors are obviously wrong.

Easy marks beginner-level challenges: A1–early A2, one rule at a time, everyday vocabulary, no trick questions.

Use "Easy" when you want to build confidence on a specific rule without interference from other grammar or tricky contexts.