For English speakers, the choice between hablar and hablando feels intuitive — until you realise Spanish doesn't draw the line where English does. English uses the -ing form everywhere: as a noun (smoking is bad), after prepositions (before going, without knowing), in the present progressive (I'm talking), as a noun modifier (running water). Spanish uses the infinitive for most of those jobs and reserves the gerund for a narrower set of genuinely ongoing or simultaneous actions. The result is that fumando es malo — which sounds like a perfect translation of smoking is bad — is wrong. The Spanish is fumar es malo.
This page walks through the four jobs the infinitive owns, the three jobs the gerund owns, and the transfer errors English speakers make almost every day at B1.
The core split in one sentence
Spanish infinitive = the verb used as a noun or after a preposition. Spanish gerund = the verb in action, right now, in progress, or as a means.
English collapses both into the -ing form. Spanish keeps them apart, and the wrong choice doesn't just sound funny — it produces an ungrammatical sentence. This is one of the cleanest one-way transfer errors from English.
The infinitive's four jobs
1. Verb-as-noun (subject, object, complement)
In Spanish, the infinitive is the noun form of the verb. English uses the gerund here (smoking, swimming, reading); Spanish uses the bare infinitive.
Fumar es malo para la salud.
Smoking is bad for your health.
Me encanta cocinar los domingos.
I love cooking on Sundays.
Conducir cansado es peligrosísimo.
Driving tired is incredibly dangerous.
Lo que más me gusta es leer en la cama.
What I like most is reading in bed.
These are the sentences where English speakers most reliably reach for the wrong form. Fumando es malo (the gerund as subject) is ungrammatical in Spanish — it sounds like a sentence fragment, not a generalisation about smoking.
When the infinitive is the subject, you can optionally add the article el (el fumar es malo). The bare infinitive is the normal everyday choice; el + infinitive is slightly more literary.
2. After every preposition
Whenever an infinitive follows a preposition in Spanish, it stays as an infinitive — never a gerund. This is absolute. English uses the -ing form after prepositions (before going, without knowing, after eating); Spanish uses the infinitive.
Antes de salir, cierra la puerta con llave.
Before leaving, lock the door.
Lo conseguí sin pedir ayuda a nadie.
I managed it without asking anyone for help.
Después de comer me echo la siesta cada día.
After eating I take a nap every day.
Llamé al fontanero para arreglar la caldera.
I called the plumber to fix the boiler.
Estoy harto de oír las mismas excusas de siempre.
I'm fed up with hearing the same old excuses.
This rule has zero exceptions in modern Spanish. If you see de, a, por, para, sin, antes de, después de, hasta, con, en — the verb that follows is an infinitive.
3. After other verbs (most of the time)
When a verb takes another verb as a complement, the second verb is almost always an infinitive: querer hacer, poder hacer, deber hacer, intentar hacer, decidir hacer, gustar hacer, esperar hacer, dejar de hacer…
Quiero ir al cine esta noche, ¿te apuntas?
I want to go to the cinema tonight — fancy joining?
He decidido dejar de fumar a partir del lunes.
I've decided to quit smoking starting Monday.
The handful of verbs that take the gerund (estar, seguir, andar, ir, venir, llevar) are progressive constructions covered below.
4. The al + infinitive construction
Al + infinitive translates English upon doing / when doing. It's a compact way to time two actions without a full cuando clause.
Al llegar a casa, me di cuenta de que me había dejado las llaves dentro.
On getting home, I realised I'd left my keys inside.
Al verme, sonrió y se acercó.
Upon seeing me, he smiled and came over.
Fully productive — drop al in front of any infinitive and you've got a temporal frame for what follows.
The gerund's three jobs
The Spanish gerund (hablando, comiendo, viviendo) has a much narrower job description than its English counterpart. It does three things, well.
Forming the gerund
- -ar → -ando (hablar → hablando).
- -er / -ir → -iendo (comer → comiendo, vivir → viviendo).
- Vowel-stem -er/-ir → -yendo (leer → leyendo, oír → oyendo, construir → construyendo).
- -ir stem-changers shift e → i or o → u (decir → diciendo, pedir → pidiendo, dormir → durmiendo, sentir → sintiendo, venir → viniendo, poder → pudiendo).
1. Genuinely ongoing action: estar + gerund
The single most common gerund use is the present progressive: estar + gerund. It marks an action genuinely in progress at the moment of speaking — narrower than English's I'm doing X, which Spanish often translates with the bare present.
No puedo hablar, estoy duchándome.
I can't talk, I'm in the shower right now.
¿Qué estás haciendo? — Estoy viendo una serie.
What are you doing? — I'm watching a show.
Justo cuando llamaste estaba poniendo la mesa.
Right when you called I was setting the table.
Crucially, estar + gerund is not used for habits or future plans. I'm going to Paris next weekend in English is not estoy yendo a París; it's voy a París este fin de semana or voy a ir a París. The progressive in Spanish is reserved for actions actually unfolding right now.
2. Simultaneous action with another verb
The gerund modifies another verb, telling you what was happening at the same time. Often translatable with English while doing or with a relative-clause workaround.
Lo vi pasando por la plaza, parecía tener prisa.
I saw him going past the square, he looked like he was in a hurry.
Salí de casa corriendo y aun así llegué tarde.
I left the house running and still arrived late.
Estudio mejor escuchando música tranquila.
I study better listening to soft music.
This is the manner / while gerund. The action of the gerund and the action of the main verb happen at the same time, attached to the same subject (usually).
3. Means: how something is done
The gerund expresses the means by which the main action is achieved — English by doing.
Aprendí inglés viendo series en versión original.
I learned English by watching shows in the original version.
Va a perder peso comiendo menos y andando más.
He's going to lose weight by eating less and walking more.
The mental test: if you can substitute English by + verb-ing, the Spanish gerund is right.
What the gerund cannot do
This is the part English speakers most often miss. The Spanish gerund cannot:
1. Act as a noun / subject
❌ Nadando es bueno para la espalda.
Wrong — the gerund cannot be a subject.
✅ Nadar es bueno para la espalda.
Swimming is good for your back. — bare infinitive as subject.
2. Follow a preposition
❌ Después de comiendo, fuimos al parque.
Wrong — after a preposition, Spanish uses the infinitive.
✅ Después de comer, fuimos al parque.
After eating, we went to the park. — infinitive after preposition.
3. Modify a noun like an adjective
In English, the running water, a sleeping baby, a smoking room uses the gerund. Spanish does not allow this — use adjectives, relative clauses, or compounds instead. A few near-fossil exceptions (agua hirviendo, agua corriendo) are tolerated as set phrases, but the productive rule is: do not stick a gerund onto a noun like an adjective.
❌ el café hirviendo (intended: boiling coffee)
The fixed form is muy caliente or recién hervido.
✅ el café muy caliente / el café recién hervido
boiling-hot coffee / freshly boiled coffee
4. Replace a relative clause
In English, the man waiting at the bus stop uses the gerund. In Spanish you must use a relative clause: el hombre que espera en la parada. The gerund version (el hombre esperando en la parada) feels like translated English.
❌ Los niños jugando en el patio son ruidosos.
Spanish prefers a relative clause.
✅ Los niños que juegan en el patio son ruidosos.
The children playing in the courtyard are noisy. — relative clause is the natural form.
Verbs of perception: a special case
Verbs of perception (ver, oír, mirar, escuchar, observar, sentir, notar) can take either a gerund or an infinitive as their complement — and the two have slightly different meanings.
Lo vi correr hacia el coche.
I saw him run to the car. (One complete action — infinitive.)
Lo vi corriendo hacia el coche.
I saw him running to the car. (Action in progress — gerund.)
The infinitive frames the perceived action as a closed event seen from outside; the gerund frames it as something the speaker witnessed in mid-action. Both are correct; the choice tracks aspect.
Periphrastic gerunds: seguir, llevar, ir, venir, andar + gerund
A small set of verbs combines with the gerund to form aspectual periphrases that add nuance the bare estar + gerund cannot.
| Construction | Adds | Example |
|---|---|---|
seguir
| continuing | Sigue lloviendo desde el martes. |
llevar
| duration up to now | Llevo tres años estudiando español. |
ir
| gradual progression | Las cosas van mejorando poco a poco. |
venir
| up-to-now from past | Vengo diciéndoselo desde hace meses. |
andar
| habitual / scattered action | Anda diciendo por ahí que se va a casar. |
Llevo dos horas esperándote, ¿dónde te has metido?
I've been waiting for you for two hours — where have you been?
Las cosas van mejorando poco a poco, no te preocupes.
Things are gradually getting better, don't worry.
These periphrases are everywhere in spoken peninsular Spanish. Llevo + time + gerund alone is the standard way to translate English I've been X-ing for Y — without it, learners default to clumsy constructions like he estado estudiando español durante tres años, which is grammatical but unnatural.
Common Mistakes
❌ Fumando es malo para la salud.
The gerund cannot be the subject of a sentence — use the infinitive.
✅ Fumar es malo para la salud.
Smoking is bad for your health. — infinitive as subject.
❌ Después de comiendo, fuimos al parque.
After a preposition, Spanish always uses the infinitive, never the gerund.
✅ Después de comer, fuimos al parque.
After eating, we went to the park. — infinitive after preposition.
❌ Sin sabiendo nada del tema, no puedo opinar.
Sin requires the infinitive.
✅ Sin saber nada del tema, no puedo opinar.
Without knowing anything about the topic, I can't have an opinion.
❌ Los niños jugando en el parque son míos.
A gerund can't directly modify a noun in Spanish — use a relative clause.
✅ Los niños que juegan en el parque son míos.
The children playing in the park are mine. — que juegan, relative clause.
❌ Estoy yendo a París la semana que viene.
Spanish progressive is for actions in progress now, not future plans.
✅ Voy a París la semana que viene.
I'm going to Paris next week. — present for scheduled future plan.
❌ He estado estudiando español durante tres años.
Grammatical but unnatural — Spanish prefers the llevar + gerund construction.
✅ Llevo tres años estudiando español.
I've been studying Spanish for three years. — llevo + time + gerund is the idiomatic form.
❌ Me gusta cocinando los domingos.
After gustar, the verb is an infinitive — the action is the thing that pleases.
✅ Me gusta cocinar los domingos.
I like cooking on Sundays. — infinitive after gustar.
Key Takeaways
- Spanish uses the infinitive where English uses the gerund in four big jobs: as subject/object/complement noun (fumar es malo), after every preposition (sin saber, antes de comer, para hablar), after other verbs (quiero ir, necesito hablar), and in the al
- infinitive construction (al llegar).
- The Spanish gerund has only three jobs: forming the progressive with estar (estoy hablando), expressing simultaneous action (lo vi corriendo), and expressing means (aprendí leyendo).
- The gerund cannot be a subject, follow a preposition, modify a noun like an adjective, or stand in for a relative clause. These are hard prohibitions, and they're the source of nearly every English-speaker error in this area.
- Estar
- gerund is narrower than English's to be -ing
- Periphrastic gerund constructions add nuance: seguir
- gerund (still doing), llevar
- time + gerund (have been doing for X), ir
- gerund (gradually doing), venir
- gerund (have been doing all along), andar
- gerund (going around doing).
- gerund (have been doing all along), andar
- gerund (gradually doing), venir
- time + gerund (have been doing for X), ir
- gerund (still doing), llevar
- Llevar
- time + gerund is the natural Spanish for English I've been doing X for Y
- Verbs of perception can take either form: infinitive for closed action (lo vi correr), gerund for action in progress (lo vi corriendo).
- The mental test: substitute English to + verb or the + verb-ing — works in Spanish with the infinitive. Substitute while/by + verb-ing — works with the gerund.
For the infinitive as noun see verbs/infinitive/as-noun; for the infinitive after prepositions see verbs/infinitive/after-prepositions; for the gerund's full set of uses see verbs/gerund/usage and the contrast page verbs/gerund/vs-infinitive.
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- El infinitivo como sustantivoB1 — How Spanish turns a verb into a noun — fumar es malo, me gusta cocinar, el comer demasiado engorda — and why the gerund cannot do this job.
- Infinitivo después de preposiciónA2 — The iron rule of Spanish syntax: any preposition is followed by the infinitive, never the gerund — antes de comer, sin pensar, para estudiar, después de llegar.
- Al + infinitivo: 'upon doing'B1 — The al + infinitivo construction marks the moment one action triggers another — al llegar a casa, me di cuenta — covering English 'upon', 'when' and 'as soon as' in one compact form.
- Usos del gerundioA2 — The four real jobs of the Spanish gerundio — the progressive with estar, manner, simultaneous action, and absolute clauses — and the three jobs it cannot do, which English-speaking learners constantly try to give it.
- Gerundio vs infinitivo: errores comunesB1 — The single highest-impact decision for English-speaking learners — when an -ing form maps to the Spanish infinitive (verbal noun, after prepositions) and when it maps to the gerundio (progressive, manner). A focused contrast page with the errors and the fixes.
- Cuándo usar el progresivo en españolA2 — When to actually use estar + gerundio in Spanish — a much narrower window than English 'I am -ing'. Action in progress right now, not general activities, not future plans.