Level: beginner
Verbs with to-infinitives
We use the to-infinitive after certain verbs (verbs followed by to-infinitive), particularly verbs of thinking and feeling:
| choose decide expect forget |
hate hope intend learn |
like love mean plan |
prefer remember want would like/love |
They decided to start a business together.
Remember to turn the lights off.
and verbs of saying:
| agree | promise | refuse | threaten |
We agreed to meet at the cinema.
Promise to call me every day.
Some verbs are followed by a direct object and then the to-infinitive:
| advise ask encourage expect |
intend invite order persuade |
remind tell want warn |
would like/love would prefer |
He encouraged his friends to vote for him.
Remind me to give Julia a call.
- Verbs with to-infinitive 1
- Verbs with to-infinitive 2
Infinitive of purpose
We also use the to-infinitive to express purpose (to answer why?):
He bought some flowers to give to his wife.
He locked the door to keep everyone out.
We can also express purpose with in order to and in order not to:
We started our journey early in order to avoid the traffic.
They spoke quietly in order not to wake the children.
or so as to and so as not to:
We started our journey early so as to avoid the traffic.
They spoke quietly so as not to wake the children.
- Infinitive of purpose 1
- Infinitive of purpose 2
Level: intermediate
Adjectives with to-infinitives
We use the to-infinitive after certain adjectives:
| able unable anxious |
due eager keen |
likely unlikely ready |
prepared willing unwilling |
Unfortunately, I was unable to work for over a week.
I'm really tired. I'm ready to go to bed.
Sometimes the to-infinitive gives a reason for the adjective:
| amazed delighted disappointed |
glad happy pleased |
proud relieved sad |
sorry surprised unhappy |
We were happy to come to the end of our journey.
(= We were happy because we had come to the end of our journey.)
John was surprised to see me.
(= He was surprised because he saw me.)
We often use it + be followed by an adjective to give opinions:
| clever difficult easy |
foolish hard kind |
nice possible impossible |
right wrong silly |
It's easy to play the piano, but it's very difficult to play well.
He spoke so quickly that it was impossible to understand him.
We use the to-infinitive with these adjectives to give opinions about people:
| clever foolish |
kind nice |
right wrong |
silly |
She was right to complain about that hotel.
You were clever to find the answer so quickly.
We use the preposition for to show who these adjectives refer to:
| difficult | easy | hard | possible | impossible |
It was difficult for us to hear what she was saying.
It is easy for you to criticise other people.
With the other adjectives, we use the preposition of:
It's kind of you to help.
It would be silly of him to spend all his money.
- Adjectives with to-infinitive 1
- Adjectives with to-infinitive 2
Level: advanced
Nouns with to-infinitives
We use the to-infinitive as a postmodifier (see noun phrases) after abstract nouns like:
| ability attempt chance |
desire failure need |
opportunity refusal wish |
They gave him an opportunity to escape.
He was annoyed by her refusal to answer.
I have no desire to be rich.
There is no need to shout.
We often use the to-infinitive as a postmodifier after indefinite pronouns:
When I am travelling I always take something to read.
I was all alone. I had no one to talk to.
There is hardly anything to do in most of these small towns.
- Nouns with to-infinitive 1
- Nouns with to-infinitive 2
Hello Nevi,
'to be milked' is a passive infinitive. I'd call it a kind of infinitive of purpose in the sentence you ask about because it clearly expresses the purpose of the first part of the sentence, though some grammars might disagree with this idea.
Although I wouldn't say it's incorrect, this sentence sounds a little unnatural to me. I would probably say 'Sylvie is bringing the cow home for it to be milked' or 'so that it is milked' instead. We tend to use a 'for' structure (as in my first alternative) when talking about a purpose that speaks about the action of another person, and 'so that' is another way of talking about purpose.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nevi,
I said that it's a kind of an infinitive of purpose to try to show that it doesn't fit the usual description of how an infinitive of purpose works. If there's a precise term for the infinitive in use here, I'm afraid I don't know what it is.
I can understand your concern about the ambiguity, but I don't see the sentence as ambiguous at all. It is very unusual for someone to speak of a woman 'being milked' (and quite inappropriate as well, I might add), but not at all for a cow to be milked. With this in mind, I don't see any ambiguity, and if the sentence is considered within a likely context, even less so. This is a good example of how syntax and lexical usage converge to produce meaning.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
You can use either the active or passive infinitive here without any difference in meaning:
This is true of any sentence like this provided the verb is transitive; inttransitive verbs do not occur in the passive, of course. Thus you can say both of these:
but you have to use the active form with a verb like go:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Nevi,
No, the choice of form here (to clean or to be cleaned) does not change who is performing the action.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Mussorie,
In your first sentence, it's probably a single action with a result in the present. (The result is that the car is now repaired.) We would need to know the context when somebody said this sentence to know for sure.
In your second sentence, the meaning is similar to 'receiving' or 'getting'. No, we can't replace it with 'taking' because the correct phrase is 'have (my) hair cut', not 'take (my) hair cut'. Also, this meaning of 'have' is not specific to the continuous form. It can be used in other verb forms too (e.g. I have my hair cut every month).
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mussorie,
Yes, it's a complement of the adjective 'busy', though I'm not sure I'd call it an 'object' complement since 'is' is a linking verb.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mussorie,
1. That's right -- the second statement is not correct. The structure we use here is 'to be busy doing something' -- no preposition is used between 'busy' and the '-ing' form.
2. I would recommend inverting the two phrases ('Ravi is busy watching the game'), which sounds much more natural. The sentence as it is written could be a little confusing, since 'watching the game' isn't really working in the way a participle clause usually does.
3. I'm afraid I can't explain the writer's choice here, but it might help to think of it as beginning with 'If we look at recent studies ...'. I would avoid writing the sentence like this for the reason you mention.
By the way, please don't ask us to reply sooner. We have a limited amount of time to reply to the numerous comments we get every day, and we prioritise comments that have a direct relationship to the page they are on. We try to get to others, such as this one, as soon as we can, but it can take some time. Asking us to answer them with another comment just slows everything down.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nevı,
In this context I see no difference,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Aysn,
I'm not sure it's really important which category a phrase falls into provided it is used correctly.
The infinitive of purpose explains the reason for an action:
The sentence is still grammatically correct without the infinitive. It simply does not provide any explanation of the action.
The infinitive in a used to phrase does not explain a purpose or a reason. It provides the action which a person did, not why they did it.
The infintive is also required; you cannot form a sentence with this meaning of 'used...' without it.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mussorie,
In terms of grammar, the first sentence uses an active infinitive while the second uses a passive infinitive.
In terms of meaning, the second sentence means that someone has to start the film. The speaker is putting responsibility on the projectionist, for example. In the first sentence, the focus is on the film itself, without any suggestion of a person being responsible.
In terms of use, the first sentence is far more likely. If you are waiting for a film on TV or at the cinema then this is the sentence you would use. If, on the other hand, you want to say that someone is causing a delay by not starting the film when they should, then you might use the second sentence. Even in this case, however, I think the first version is more likely.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mussorie,
The sentence is grammatically possible but whether or not it is correct or appropriate depends on what you want to say. If you can provide a context then we'll be able to say if the sentence is suitable for that context or not.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Mussorie,
OK, that helps to clarify what you want to say. First of all, I think 'gift her on...' is not the most natural way to phrase it. A better way would be this:
The sentence is cetainly about possibility rather than ability. It's asking about ideas for possible presents.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nuro,
We don't normally use a negative infinitive of purpose. You could say 'so as not to' or 'in order not to' instead.
If you mean where the preposition phrase 'to Italy in 2015' should go, you've put it in the best position. One reason is that if the verb 'move' has a prepositional phrase that goes with it, it goes after 'move'. Putting the phrase here also makes it clear that the better job was in Italy.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nuro,
When you place 'not' before an infinitive it has the meaning 'not because...' and you need to provide an alternative in the form of a positive infinitive:
You could also use the phrase 'so as not to', with the meaning 'in order to avoid':
This has the same meaning as ' in order to not':
Your second sentence is fine. I'm not sure which preposition you mean, however.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Onur_kucukoglu,
The constrution here is:
Here are some similar sentences:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello an10,
'Humble' here is an adjective. You could replace it with any other adjective: happy, sad, optimistic etc.
In terms of its function in the sentence, it is a complement.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Alicelle,
It is possible to use just + to + infinitive with negative forms. It's not very common, but it is possible.
Just + to + infinitive has the sense of 'for only this reason' or 'for no other reason'. For example:
The meaning here is that the only reason he left early was to be on time; there was no other reason.
We can use a negative before 'just':
We can also use a negative later in the sentence:
It's also possible, though very unusual, to use a negative infinitive:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Alicelle,
You can use either 'to not be' or 'not to be'. There is no difference in meaning.
It's more common to use a positive infinitive with the opposite meaning. In other words, a form like 'in order to be on time' is more common than 'in order not to be late'. This is not a rule, but simply a question of frequency of use.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
To bank with (a particular bank) means to do banking activities (e.g. opening or closing an account, transferring money). So, Good people to bank with means (We are) good people for you to do your banking business with.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
It's an interesting phrase! Good people refers to the bank, and to grow with refers to you, the reader or customer. We can paraphrase it like this: (We are) good people (for you) to grow with.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Anatoly,
This looks like a newspaper headline. One of the features of headlines or titles is that words are often left out. In this case, I understand the full sentence to be 'The government is to announce new measures'.
In this sort of construction, the 'to'-infinitive has a future meaning. It's often used to speak about official plans and is typically used in a formal style.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Samin,
The past perfect is used when we want to describe an action which happened before another relevant action in the past. That means that when we use the past perfect there must be another past time action (using past simple or continuous) to act as a point of reference.
Your first sentence is correct: the past perfect action (had decided) occurs before the past simple action (wanted) ended.
Your second sentence is not correct without some other context - an action to provide a point of reference in the past simple or continuous. That's not to say it couldn't be correct. It is possible to use two or more past perfect verbs in one sentence provided there is another action to act as the point of reference. However, in your sentence this is missing.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Reemtb,
Yes, you can use other link verbs in sentences like this one.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Kim Hui-jeong,
With respect to your first question, I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here. The only modal verb here ('may') is in the last sentence, and here it 'behaves' as with any other modal, i.e. the verb after it is a base form. The infinitive after the other verbs is one of multiple possible collocations after those verbs. Perhaps they are all similar in some sort of classification, but I'm afraid we don't present grammar using such classifications on our site.
Some of the sentences in B and C sound a little odd to me (e.g. 'I'm eager for that suit'), and I'm not sure I wouldn't say that those phrases beginning with 'for' mean 'in support of' or 'in favour of'. I'd encourage you to study the example sentences in a good dictionary to see the different ways these words are used.
If you have any other questions, could you please make them a bit shorter and focused on just one thing? It would help us answer your comments more efficiently. Thanks in advance for your understanding.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team