Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[giuliog]

Sentence "I love hearing people speak..." is it grammatically correct?

or do I have to say "I love hearing people speaking"?


or are both correct?

do they have the same/different meaning?

Thank you

[EnglishRaven]

I think your first example is okay grammatically. I think the second one is grammatically possible but feels awkward on the tongue of a native speaker (and usually when it feels awkward, speakers will use it less and less often).

For the second one, it would feel more natural to me to say "I love to hear people speaking".

There is a slight difference in meaning, though. When you say "I love hearing..." it has the idea of something you do regularly or often.

In the second example, there is no firm idea of how often it happens, just that it does happen.

- Jason
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