What is the difference between "gerund" and "infinitive"?

Question

What is the difference between "gerund" and "infinitive"? I do not understand the differences.Can you explain them?

Answer 1

Taken from Gerunds and Pronouns on this blog:

Gerunds and Verbal Nouns: Because they are noun-like, we can think of gerunds as names. But rather than naming persons, places, things, events, and the like, as nouns generally do, gerunds, because they are verbs in form, name activities or behaviors or states of mind or states of being.

A gerund is derived from a verb by adding the suffix -ing. The result is still a verb, and it exhibits ordinary verbal properties, such as taking objects and adverbs.

Example: In football, deliberately tripping an opponent is a foul.

Here the verb trip occurs in its gerund form tripping, but this tripping is still a verb: it takes the adverb deliberately and the object an opponent. However, the entire phrase deliberately tripping an opponent, because of the gerund within it, now functions as a noun phrase, in this case as the subject of the sentence. So, a gerund is still a verb, but the phrase built around it is nominal, not verbal.

Infinitive phrase : An infinitive phrase is the infinitive form of a verb plus any complements and modifiers. The complement of an infinitive verb will often be its direct object, and the modifier will often be an adverb.

Example : He likes to knead the dough slowly.

The infinitive verb is to knead. The complement is its direct object (the dough). The modifier is the adverb (slowly).

More examples of Infinitive Phrases:

He helped to build the roof.
The officer returned to help the inspectors.
She tells you to dance like no one is watching.

Answer 2

A gerund is the present participle of a verb.

To swing == swinging

The non-action part is known as the infinitive: to swing.

Infinities will typically begin with the word to. Though, that to can easily be replaced with a conjugated auxiliary or helping verb.

To shower, to eat, and to live are infinitives.

Showering, eating, and living are the respective gerunds.

An infinitive is a verb that is not conjugated.

Answer 3

"Gerunds" and "Infinitives" Gerunds which is a verb + ing that is used as a noun. Infinitives is begun with “to” followed by the simple form of the verb.

You must review verbs that are followed by gerunds — such as keep and dislike — and those that are followed by infinitives — such as need and want — as well as those that are interchangeable.

A gerund follows these verbs: abhor, acknowledge, admit, advice, allow, anticipate, appreciate, avoid, be worth, can’t help, celebrate, confess, consider, defend, delay, deny, detest, discontinue, discuss, dislike, dispute, dread, endure, enjoy, escape, evade, explain, fancy, fear, feel like, feign, finish, forgive, give up, imagine, keep, keep on, mention, miss, omit, permit, picture, practice, prevent, put off, recall, recollect, recommend, report, resent, resist, resume, risk, shun, suggest, support, understand, urge, warrant. Example, I enjoy meeting new people.

An infinitive follows these verbs: afford, agree, appear, arrange, ask, attempt, beg, care, chance, choose, claim, come, consent, dare, decide, demand, deserve, determine, elect, endeavor, expect, fail, get, grow (up), guarantee, hesitate, hope, hurry, incline, intend, learn, manage, mean, need, neglect, offer, pay, plan, prepare, pretend, profess, promise, prove, refuse, remain, request, resolve, say, seek, seem, shudder, strive, struggle, swear, tend, threaten, turn out, venture, volunteer, wait, want, wish, would like, yearn. Example, I would like to visit you this week.

Verbs gerund or infinitive begin, can't bear, can't stand, continue, forget, go on, hate, like, love, prefer, propose, quit, regret, remember, start, stop, try.

You can read more on the topic on this page:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/intermediate-grammar/verbs-followed-ing-or-infinitive-2