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All English activities

Activities: “Infinitive verbs in English: What are they and when are they used?”

By: Isabel McKay

Activity 1: Spot the infinitives

Find and click on all of the infinitive verbs in the story below. Make sure to mark both the infinitives with to and the bare infinitives!

(Remember, the word to does not always mark an infinitive, and not all uses of the root form are bare infinitives!)

A smiling woman with brown skin wears a straw sun hat and a linen blouse and holds up a pumpkin in an agricultural field.

A trip ! Yesterday, we a trip . It Halloween next week, so we some pumpkins Jack-o’-lanterns. It a beautiful day outside, and we really happy the day off work so that we . My friend Maggie and I always near the highway. In addition , they lots of things at the pumpkin farm. We time the corn maze or on a hayride, but we still pictures with the sunflowers and it really fun the giant pumpkins. When we for our pumpkins, I that I my wallet, but luckily Maggie her credit card, and she for both of us. It really kind of her !

Activity 2: Complex Infinitives

What is the infinitive form of the underlined verbs in each of the sentences below. For example:

ex: We are washing dishes.→ to be washing

  1. Sandy goes to the pool three days a week.

  2. Timothy is a professor.

  3. Millie will pass back your papers.

  4. The dog is running in circles.

  5. The smoke alarm went off because my pasta was burning.

  6. The criminals were caught robbing the bank.

  7. A coat had been forgotten on the subway.

  8. My goldfish has lived a good life.

  9. Recently, my car has been making a very odd noise.

  10. The meeting has been being interrupted over-and-over, since we started!