Language tip of the week: avoid

In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc.

This week’s language tip helps with the verb avoid:

Avoid is never used with an infinitive. It is followed by a verb in the –ing form:
✗ Avoid to use long quotations unless really necessary.
✓ Avoid using long quotations unless really necessary.
✗ A survey has found that most smokers would avoid to eat out if smoking were banned.
✓ A survey has found that most smokers would avoid eating out if smoking were banned.

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

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