English Grammar - Gerund or Infinitive? ('I like swimming' or 'I like to swim'?)

Hello there. How are you? Excellent? Not good? Oh, okay. Today, by special request to you,

the engVid and YouTube viewers, I'm going to do a lesson, yay, a grammar lesson, ew,

must be done on these two kinds of grammar. One is a gerund. When I first read this, when

I was my early teaching, I said, "Gerund? Okay, class. Today, we're going to learn about

gerunds." And my boss glared at me, and I said, "Oh, ger, ger, ger. It's gerunds."

"Oh, fine. You could spell it like a gerund. It would be better." The word is gerund, not

gerund. And infinitive. Now, I remember when I was a child, my father used to say to me,

"Ronnie, do not split your infinitives." "Okay, daddy." I had no idea what he's talking about.

Now, 20 years later, I understand what he meant. Thanks, dad. Yeah, okay. I won't split

them, I promise. Okay? Gerund and infinitives are mortal enemies, okay? Remember, you can

never, ever have a gerund and an infinitive in the same sentence. They hate each other.

They will fight. Your sentence will die a slow and terrible death if you have two of

these in the same sentence. So, you can choose. It doesn't matter what you use. You can use

gerund or infinitive. There's no rule that you have to use a gerund here on Tuesdays,

or Wednesdays and Thursdays is infinitive day. It does not matter. What does matter?

What matters? You cannot use them in the same sentence. So, gerund. What is a gerund, you

may ask? Gerund is a noun or a verb plus -ing. So, an example of a noun would be "snowboard."

Snowboard is a thing that you ride on down a mountain. So, you can say, if it's your

interest or your hobby, you can say, "I like snowboarding." Or, "I like skiing." Or, "I

like shopping." I hate shopping. Really hate it. So, it's your opinion. I'm going to write,

"I hate shopping" because I hate shopping. "Shop" is a noun. It is a store, but we don't

say, "I hate storing." It's strange. "Ski" is both a noun and a verb, and "snowboard"

is a noun. So, we have a verb. Swim. How many of you guys like swimming? Did I say swimming?

You can also say this, "I went swimming." It's cool. This is an example, or these are

examples of gerunds. Gerund is verb or noun plus -ing ending. So, let's do some infinitives,

shall we? Such fun. The infinitive form is "to" plus my base verb. So, in the infinitive

form, you can say, "I hate" -- here's my infinitive -- "to shop." "Shop" in this case is a verb

as well. "Ski," you can say, "I like to ski." This is my infinitive phrase. How about this

one? "I like snowboarding." In the infinitive, it would be, "I like" -- anyone know the answer

-- "to" -- excellent -- "I like to snowboard." And this one, "I like to swim." The number

one mistake that students make, and you might make as well, is this. People say, "I like

to swimming." Now, this is wrong. You can never have a gerund and an infinitive in the

same sentence. You can choose one or the other. It doesn't matter. "I like to swim" is perfect.

Or, "I went swimming." "I like swimming" is correct as well. I hope this helps you and

clears up your confusion with those beautiful gerunds and those dirty little infinitives.

Take care. We'll see you soon.