The use of’-ing’ and ’to’

‘to+ Verb’ is
 aiming to the future in a philosophical way.
 used when we are talking about plans and goals while emphasising the next move you
need to get to the result.
 the result is more important than the process itself.
‘Verb+ -ing’ is
 the emphasis is on the process to reach a goal.
 the journey towards your goal is more important than your goal

The structure of the English sentence

Subject + Predicate/ Verb + Object + Extra information

These phrases, the ‘to+ V’ and ‘V+ -ing”, can appear not only as verbs in a sentence but also
subjects, objects, or phrases that give extra information.
As
Subjects
 Eg.: Swimming is difficult. /To swim is difficult.
 Grammatically, both are correct, but the emphasis in them is on the action of
swimming not in the aim that is reached by swimming.
 In consequence, the ‘-ing’ form is used in natural situations.
Objects
 As objects again both forms are correct grammatically,
 BUT either has its own thing to express.
 When we talk about a list of things to do, we use the ‘-ing’ form because again, the
emphasis is on the action of doing these things.
 When we talk about our goals, we use ‘to’ because we just name the things we
want to do or get but it does not mean that we go and do or get them instantly.
 If it gives you a hard time deciding which one to use, just thing about the next
example:
o The most dangerous part of my job is feeding the giraffe. / The most
dangerous part of my job is to feed the giraffe.
 In the first sentence we only concentrate on the feeding of the giraffe
 BUT in the second one we think about the feeding of the giraffe as a
part of everything else (part of your daily routine for example).
‘Extra information’s
 with adjectives
o Swimming is difficult. / It is difficult to swim.
 to give reasons
o We can add ‘to’ to the end of the sentence to answer the question
‘WHY?’, to explain the reason.
o Eg.1: I met the giraffe at midnight. (completely correct and enough
grammatically) -> I met the giraffe at midnight to give him goodnight
kisses.
o Eg.2: I met some giraffes who were eating pasta. (That is again
completely correct but a bit long to pronounce. BUT the ‘-ing’ helps to
make it a bit easier) -> I met some giraffes (wo were) eating pasta.
 She ran away from the elephant (what was) running towards
her.