0
  1. He spent all the time he should spend studying to play games
  2. He spent all the time he should spend studying playing games

Which one do you think is correct? Theoretically, (2)，but is it not right for two "ing"s to appear in the adjacent positions?

ForOU
  • 1,673
  • 6
  • 17
  • There's no rule that says you can't have two "-ing"s in adjacent positions. Where did you hear that? – gotube Jun 24 '23 at 17:13
  • @gotube I haven't seen two "ing"s occupying adjacent positions, so I feared there might be a rule preventing that happening. – ForOU Jun 26 '23 at 00:43
  • No such rule. The two "-ing" forms are natural together in that sentence. As others have pointed out, the tense of "spend" is incorrect, but that's not what your question is about – gotube Jun 26 '23 at 04:50

2 Answers2

1

(1) is definitely wrong.

There is no rule against using two words ending in -ing together, but if you don't like it for stylistic reasons, you could say

He spent all the time he should have spent in study in playing games.

Kate Bunting
  • 54,408
  • 4
  • 69
  • 110
0

Firstly, I'd use the past participle here:

He spent all the time he should have spent studying playing games.

As for the end of the sentence, either "to play" or "playing" would be correct, but they result in a very clunky sentence. It might be a little clearer if you reorder it:

All the time he should have spent studying, he spent playing games.

Anonymous
  • 11
  • 2