Conversation Questions Gerunds and Infinitives: ESL Speaking Activity

We use gerunds (verb + ing):

• After certain verbs – I enjoy drawing
• After prepositions – I drank a beer after running.
• As the subject or object of a sentence – Jogging is good exercise

We use ‘to’ + infinitive:

• After certain verbs – We decided to buy the house.
• After many adjectives – It’s easy to do it.
• – I came to London to work in a restaurant.

We use the bare infinitive (the infinitive without ‘to’):

• After modal verbs – I can see you in the afternoon.
• After ‘let’, ‘make’ and (sometimes) ‘help’ – The teacher let us go home after the test.
• After some verbs of perception (see, watch, hear, notice, feel, sense) – I watched her feed the birds.
• After expressions with ‘why’ – why waste time in the bar?

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Conversation Questions Gerunds and Infinitives

1. What food have you never eaten but would really like to try?

2. What have you stopped doing recently?

3. What is something you always intended to do but never found the time/money?

4. What would be the best thing you could reasonably expect to find in a cave?

5. How do you make yourself sleep when you can’t seem to get to sleep?

6. What’s something you really resent paying for?

7. What social stigma does society need to get over?

8. What movie can you watch over and over without ever getting tired of?

9. When doing sports have you ever risked hurting yourself?

10. When was the last time you immediately regretted something you said?

11. As a child, what did you think would be awesome about being an adult, but isn’t as awesome as you thought it would be?

12. What kinds of things do you like to cook or are good at cooking?

13. What do you enjoy doing that you are embarrassed about?

14. When you are old, what do you think children will ask you to tell stories about?

15. What kind of people do you avoid meeting?

16. Have you ever refused to help someone?

17. When was the last time you decided to do something unexpected/crazy?

18. What do you hope to achieve in the future?

19. How often do you appreciate other people for helping you?

20.Have you ever denied doing something even if you did it?

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