I turned from being her patient to (being) her student.
Why or why not? I find both instances on Google and some use into. So I'm a bit confused.
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I think it's necessary but I can't tell exactly why.– iBugCommented Apr 7, 2017 at 2:39
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2 Answers
The second being is necessary to form the contrast.
In your example,
I went from being her patient to her student.
"to her student" is not correct, though it might be understood.
The pattern you are using is
from be-ing something to be-ing something-else
I went from "I was her patient" to "I am her student".
Then I was her patient, now I am her student.
was, am, being are all state of being verbs.
The second being is necessary to state what you are now.
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You think it's actually necessary? I feel like when there's that kind of parallelism in a sentence, we often omit the repetition of the verb. I can't think of a rule per se, but if you google "I went from being" you'll see the second being often omitted. Same thing with "I went from working out" - you see stuff like "I went from working out six times a week to twice a week", without the repetition of "working out".– stangdonCommented Apr 7, 2017 at 12:19
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While it's true "I went from being single to married overnight" avoids the repetition and is understandable, something like "I went from eating meat to vegetables" doesn't sound quite right, nor does "I went from being a carnivore to vegetarian", as it's usually phrased as "I went from eating meat to being a vegetarian".– PeterCommented Apr 10, 2017 at 6:27
I can give my explanation. But I could not give the the real reasons. My English teacher said that verb behind a preposition should convert into V-ing . In the sentence, both "from" and "to" are prepositions. So the second "being" should be being.
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I don't think the OP was asking whether it should be be or being, he was asking whether the verb should be there at all.– stangdonCommented Apr 7, 2017 at 12:19