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'Start' and 'begin' accept both gerund and infinitive with no meaning difference, except with stative verbs or in continuous forms.
Side-by-side comparison
"Start" and "begin" are synonyms in most cases. Both can be followed by a gerund or an infinitive without changing the meaning.
She started learning Spanish when she was twelve and has not stopped since.
It began raining heavily just as we got to the station without an umbrella.
After the break, the students started working much more quietly and efficiently.
The only practical distinction is one of register: "begin" sounds more formal and literary; "start" sounds more everyday and informal. In normal speech, "start" is far more common.
When she heard the news, she started to cry and could not stop for a long time.
He began to realise his mistake only after the exam had already ended.
As I got older, I started to understand why my parents made those decisions.
Common mistake
The classic slip is stacking two -ing forms: "She is starting working" sounds off, it should be "is starting to work". The same goes for "was beginning to realize" with "began".
Trick to remember it
Most of the time you can choose: "She started working" and "She started to work" are the same. It only switches to "to" in two cases: when "start" already ends in -ing ("is starting to work") and with verbs of thinking or feeling ("started to understand"). Unlike "stop" or "remember", the meaning does not change here.
Quick rule
START/BEGIN + -ING and TO are equivalent in almost all contexts. Exceptions:
- 1.START/BEGIN in continuous → complement uses TO: "is starting TO work."
- 2.Cognitive verbs → TO: "started TO understand / began TO realize."
Did you know?
START and BEGIN are the best examples in English of what linguists call "complementation symmetry", the ability of a verb to accept both gerund and infinitive without a change in meaning. Linguists investigate why some verbs allow this double complementation (start, begin, continue, intend) while others do NOT (stop, remember, forget, where the change has semantic consequences). The most accepted theory: double complementation arises when the temporal aspect of the action is so natural and expected that grammar does not need to distinguish between the process (-ING) and the goal or starting point (TO). With STOP, the process/goal distinction IS semantically relevant (stopping doing X vs stopping in order to do X are two different realities), so the language maintains the morphological distinction.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
She started _____ piano lessons when she was six years old.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
It began _____ when they were in the middle of the picnic.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
Both mean "to commence", but "start" is more everyday and physical; "begin" is more formal and used for processes.
In 'look forward to', the 'to' is a preposition, not part of the infinitive, so it is followed by a gerund (-ing).
'Stop to do' = pause in order to do something else; 'stop doing' = cease doing something.
'Suggest' and 'recommend' never take 'to' + infinitive; they use a gerund or a 'that' clause.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy