“Regret + -ing” normally expresses sorrow about an action or situation. Formal “regret + to-infinitive” is commonly used to introduce bad or unwelcome news.
ReviewedEvidence1 sourceSectionEnglish Usage
Quick answer
Use “regret doing” for feeling sorry about an action. Formal “regret to do” introduces something unwelcome you are about to say, inform, or announce.
Key details
Confusion Familygrammar-and-usage distinction
Rule Familymeaning and construction
Termsregret doing, regret to do
Further guidance
Infinitive Pattern
Formal regret + to-infinitive is used especially when politely introducing unwelcome information, as in “regret to inform” or “regret to announce.”
Ing Pattern
Use regret + -ing to say you feel sorry about an action or situation, commonly one that has already happened.
Register Boundary
The to-infinitive pattern is notably formal in the Cambridge evidence; it should not be treated as a simple tense substitute for regret + -ing.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
“Despite” and “in spite of” have the same concessive role and are followed by a noun phrase or -ing form rather than a finite clause introduced directly after them.
“Forget + -ing” concerns whether an earlier event remains in memory. “Forget + to-infinitive” means the intended action was not remembered and therefore may not have been done.
“Hear” normally presents sound perception as an event or natural process; “listen” presents deliberate attention. Before an object, “listen” normally takes “to.”
With noun phrases, “do” often focuses on carrying out an activity or task, while “make” often focuses on creating or producing an outcome. Many combinations are fixed collocations and must be learned as such.
