Which sentences are correct? Thank you so much.

What I want to do is read a book. What I want to do is to read a book. What I want to do is that reading a book. What I want to do is that I want to read a book.

Know the answer?

5 answers from our tutors

Best answer

The infinitive read or to read is correct, but keeping the to is optional. What I want to do is read a book. What I want to do is to read a book. What I want to do is that I want to read a book. Using the gerund reading is incorrect. Someone else asked this question in 2013 and John Lawler answered it in detail talking about “clefting” which is a syntactical device to emphasize certain parts of the sentence. The main point of the sentence is “I want to read a book” The reason why you would use read and not reading is because want takes an infinitive complement, and to do is also the infinitive. You have to make the verbs match.

Other student questions

Show all