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I have seen a promotional video for Beyond the Future in Mr Love: Queen's Choice, I copied its lines and want to rewrite them to practice my expression and grammar.

Here is the one confused me of the lines:

Whether it's a play or a game, what I want is to spend time with you.

There is a problem I met, I want to use prefer doing to replace the original want to do as follow:

Whether it's a play or a game, what I prefer is to spending time with you.

But then I hesitated, I am not very sure this is correct grammatically, maybe it only ought to be rewritten as this, I know which is correct:

Whether it's a play or a game, what I prefer is spending time with you.

So are they both correct? May you tell me?

ColleenV
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Beau Garçon Idol Lucianus
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    Does this answer your question? [Why is \`enjoy to \[verb\]\` incorrect?](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/17259/why-is-enjoy-to-verb-incorrect) Also [passive Gerunds to express likes or dislikes](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/105414/) and ["I like to be loved" vs. "I like being loved"](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/67496/) and [passive Gerunds to express likes or dislikes](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/105414/passive-gerunds-to-express-likes-or-dislikes), among others. – FumbleFingers Apr 16 '22 at 14:16

1 Answers1

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First, the expressions are to spend time and spending time - never to spending time (but see the note at the end).

Secondly, some words (verbs, adjectives) require one or other of these constructions, some allow either. So

I like spending time with you or I like to spend time with you.

But

I enjoy spending time with you, not *I enjoy to spend time with you.

(The * means "not grammatical).

Conversely

I hope to spend time with you, but not *I hope spending time with you.

You cannot predict from the meaning that like will take either construction, that enjoy takes only an -ing clause and that hope takes only a to-infinitive clause: these are details that just have to be learnt.

Note prefer takes a to phrase as its standard of comparison:

I prefer apples to oranges.

This is quite separate from the to in a to-infinitive clause, and can be combined with an -ing clause:

I prefer reading a book to spending time with you.

This is grammatical: it is not the sort of mixed clause I described above as unacceptable: it is the preposition to followed by an -ing clause.

Colin Fine
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    I think it's worth explicitly pointing out that we can use infinitives for "X rather than Y" comparisons - in which case the word ***than*** is required, not the preposition ***to***. *I [would] prefer **to** starve [rather] **than** [to] eat that!*. Where both instances of ***to*** are infinitive markers (but the second can be "deleted" as being a predictable repetition of the first one, in a parallel construction). – FumbleFingers Apr 16 '22 at 14:27