Learners of English are taught that we use the preposition ‘to’ with the infinitive after certain verbs, for example… ‘I like to know’, ‘I need to talk’, ‘I want to go’, etc. This is certainly the case in formal English. However, there are five verbs where, in conversation, we don’t usually use ‘to’ but ‘and’ as a preposition.
In informal conversation ‘…and’ should be used after ‘come’, ‘go’, ‘stay’, ‘try’ and ‘wait’ where it follows the infinitive or the Present Simple of those verbs.
Let’s go and see
- He comes and eats
- They stay and chat
- I try and eat every morning
- You wait and see!
‘…and’ should also be used after, ‘went’, ‘came’, and ‘stayed’, where it follows the preterit. It is then followed by the preterit of the linked verb. However, this does NOT apply to ‘tried’ and ‘waited’ where the preposition ‘to’ must be used
- We went and saw
- He came and met you
- They stayed and chatted
- I tried and ate to eat every morning
- You waited and saw to see
Essayons de trouver une voiture
- Let’s try and find a car (more natural)
- Let’s try to find a car (grammatically okay but less natural)
Il a essayé de trouver une voiture
- He tried to find a car
- He tried and found a car (you cannot use ‘and’ with ‘try’ in the past tense)
Nous n’avons qu’à attendre et voir…
- We just have to wait and see (more natural)
- We just have to wait to see (grammatically okay but less natural)
Nous attendons de voir.
- We are waiting to see
- We are waiting and see (you cannot use ‘and’ if it follows the progressive form ‘waiting’)
Je vais rester et travailler encore un peu.
- I’m going to stay and work a little more (more natural)
- I’m going to stay to work a little more (grammatically okay but less natural)
Je suis resté et j’ai travaillé un peu plus.
- I stayed and worked a bit more (you can use ‘and’ in the past tense with ‘came’, went’ and ‘stayed’, but not with ‘tried’ and ‘waited’)
- I stayed to work a bit more (grammatically okay but less natural)
J’ai invité Jack à venir pour déjeuner avec nous.
- I invited Jack to come and have lunch (or ‘dine’) with us (more natural)
- I invited Jack to come to have lunch (or ‘dine’) with us (grammatically okay but less natural)
Ils venaient pour déjeuner avec nous
- They used to come and have lunch with us (you can use ‘and’ here because you are using the infinitive ‘come’)
- They would come and have lunch with us (you can use ‘and’ here because you are using the infinitive ‘come’)
- They came and had lunch with us (past habit) (you can use ‘and’ here with the preterits ‘came’ and ‘had’)
Ils sont venus pour déjeuner avec nous
- They came and had lunch with us (single action) (you can use ‘and’ here with the preterits ‘came’ and ‘had’)
- They came to have lunch with us (single action) (grammatically okay but less natural)
Je dois aller acheter de l’encre pour l’imprimante.
- I have to / I must go and buy some ink for the printer (more natural)
- I have to / I must go to buy some ink for the printer (grammatically okay but less natural)
Note: Using ‘and’ as a preposition is applied only when both verbs verb are treated as one single action. For example, when you say, ‘he came and saw me’, this means that both actions happened simultaneously. However, if you need to make a distinction between the two verbs and state that the second action is the reason for the first action, then you must say ‘to’. For example…
- ‘He came to my house yesterday’ = Il est venu chez moi hier
- Why? = pourquoi ?
- He came and saw to see me = il est venu (pour) me voir
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