Infinitive after Prepositions

In Italian, every preposition takes the infinitive when followed by a verb. There are no exceptions and no alternatives — never a gerund, never a finite form. Senza parlare (without speaking), prima di partire (before leaving), per vivere (to live, in order to live).

This single rule eliminates one of English's biggest verb-form headaches ("before I leave" vs "before leaving" vs "before to leave"). In Italian: preposition + infinitive. Always.

The harder part is choosing which preposition the verb requires — that's lexical and has to be learned verb by verb.

The basic prepositions

Italian uses these prepositions before infinitives:

The "transparent" prepositions — senza, prima di, dopo, invece di, oltre a, per — work like English equivalents (with English -ing), so they cause few errors of choice. The trap is using -ing instead of the infinitive.

The "lexical" prepositions — a, di, da — are the hard part. Their choice depends on the verb that precedes them, and there is no general rule that predicts which verb takes which.

Per = purpose

Per + infinitive expresses purpose — "in order to." This is the easiest and one of the most useful constructions.

In English, the "in order to" sense often gets reduced to plain "to" — I came to help you. In Italian, you must use per, not just the infinitive alone, when you mean purpose. Sono venuto aiutarti is wrong; it must be sono venuto per aiutarti.

Senza, prima di, invece di — the "transparent" trio

These three prepositions correspond to English without, before, instead of — and English would use the -ing form after each. Italian uses the infinitive.

Dopo + infinito passato

After dopo (after), Italian uses the perfect infinitive — avere/essere + participio passato. This is because the action expressed is completed before the main verb's action.

The infinito passato is required after dopo — never dopo mangiare. See infinito passato for the full formation rules.

Note: this only works when the subject of dopo is the same as the subject of the main clause. If the subjects differ, you need dopo che + finite verb: Dopo che lui è arrivato, siamo usciti (After he arrived, we went out).

Verbs that take a + infinitive

This is the first lexical group. These verbs require a before their infinitive complement:

A pattern: many "movement" verbs (andare, venire, correre, tornare) take a, as do many "beginning / undertaking" verbs.

A second use: essere bravo/capace a + infinitive (to be good/capable at doing something).

Note: in English we say "good at cooking" (gerund). In Italian: bravo a cucinare (infinitive). Not bravo in cucinare, not bravo per cucinare.

Verbs that take di + infinitive

This is the largest group — many of the most common verbs of saying, thinking, feeling, deciding, and stopping take di:

Da + infinitive: a small but useful group

Da + infinitive has two main uses:

1. With nouns/expressions of quantity, expressing what there is to do:

2. With certain adjectives, expressing "to do" in a passive sense:

Verbs that take NO preposition (bare infinitive)

A small but extremely important group of verbs takes the infinitive directly, with no preposition. These include all the modals and the most common "preference" verbs:

How to learn the verb-preposition pairings

There is no logical shortcut here — preposition choice is lexical. But three observations help:

1. Most "verbs of saying / thinking / hoping / deciding" take di. Sperare di, decidere di, pensare di, credere di, dire di.
2. Most "verbs of beginning / learning / movement" take a. Cominciare a, imparare a, andare a, venire a, riuscire a.
3. The modals + a handful of "want / love" verbs take nothing. Voglio, posso, devo, amo, preferisco
   • bare infinitive.

These patterns cover ~80% of high-frequency verbs. The exceptions you absorb verb by verb.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

After every Italian preposition, use the infinitive — never the gerund. This is non-negotiable.

For the question of which preposition:

• Per = purpose ("in order to").
• Senza, prima di, invece di = direct correspondence with English without, before, instead of.
• Dopo = followed by the infinito passato (aver mangiato, essere arrivato).
• A vs di vs nothing = depends on the specific verb. Memorize verb + preposition as a unit.

A useful productivity trick: when you encounter a new verb in reading or conversation, write down its preposition with it. Riuscire a, smettere di, cominciare a, decidere di — learn them as inseparable pairs and the lexical burden becomes manageable.