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Today I did my homework and found one question that is too difficult to answer to me.

The question was like this: She decided to marry Tom. ≒She decided ( ) marrying Tom.

I’ve been studying English for 6 years. But I think I’ve almost never heard the expression “decide on doing”.(At least I don’t remember that.) Is this expression relatively common, or is this so usual?

If the two expressions “decide to do/decide on doing” are used in different ways, please tell me the difference.

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    The best way to decide questions like these is to use Google Books Ngram Viewer: books.google.com/ngrams/…
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 8:57
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    or this (takes infection into account)
    – Andrew
    Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 8:59

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Well, there's an answer here actually: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78170/difference-between-decided-on-and-decided-to/78172#:~:text=plan%20of%20action.-,I%20have%20decided%20to%20emigrate%20to%20Australia.,I%20have%20decided%20on%20emigration.

In short, it said this:

I have decided on + object

I have decided to + verb

The usage is based on the construction of the sentence.

Decide to suggests that you have chosen a plan of action.

Decide on suggests that you have chosen one from two or more options that you were weighing.

In some cases, I have personally seen some using "on" in your situation ('decide (on) marrying Tom'); so I guess it depends on the situation. Hope this helps.

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