Spanish · Chapter 33 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
The infinitive as a noun and after prepositions
Where English reaches for the -ing form, Spanish uses the bare infinitive: fumar es malo (smoking is bad), antes de salir (before leaving), al llegar (on arriving). The nominal infinitive, every preposition, and the single biggest -ing mistake.
The short version
After a preposition, always the infinitive
Every English -ing that behaves like a noun becomes a Spanish infinitive. As a subject: fumar es malo. After any preposition at all: antes de salir, sin decir nada, después de comer. Say antes de saliendo and you have marked yourself out in three words. There are no exceptions to hunt for.
Antes de salir, cierra la puerta.
Al plus an infinitive borrows its tense
Al plus an infinitive means on or upon doing something, and it carries no tense of its own. Al salir can be when I leave, when I left or when I will leave, entirely depending on the main verb. It is far more compact than a full cuando clause, and much more natural in speech.
Al llegar a casa, me quité los zapatos.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article · 6 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
14-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Spanish · Free printables
Worksheets for this lesson
Worksheets with answer keys built in. Open any one to view, print or save.
Free for members
The printable worksheets, infographics and PDFs are free with an account. Start a free week and download as many as you like.
Start your free weekLesson 8 of 22 in this chapter