I look forward seeing you or I look forward to seeing you | The Grammar Exchange

Welcome to the Grammar Exchange and thank you for your question.

Please note that it helps me and my associates very much if you assign index numbers or letters to your examples, especially when you have so many of them. This makes it easier for us to refer back to them and to suggest variations. Since you haven’t done so, please allow me to assign these index numbers to your examples:

1: I look forward seeing you.
2: I look forward to see you.
3: I look forward to hearing from you.
4: I look forward to hear from you.
5: I like to skating.
6: I like to skate.
7: I like skating.

That was the easy part. Your question is actually much more complicated than it seems, and there is no way I can give you anything like a complete answer. There is no single rule here that applies to all situations. But let’s see how far we can get with me just addressing these seven examples for now.

Your examples (5), (6), and (7) are the easiest to evaluate. In all of these, “like” is a transitive verb and requires a substantive (that is, either a noun phrase or something that will be understood as a noun in context) as a direct object, for example, “I like rice” or “I like Celtic folk music”. In (6), the infinitive (which is really not the same thing as “to+present simple”) serves as a noun. In (7), the word “skating” means the same thing as “to skate” does in (6). However, I can only understand “to skating” as it is used in (5) as an adverbial phrase. Therefore, (6) and (7) are both understandable and grammatically correct, but (5) is neither. (Interestingly, (5) is the only one of your seven examples that makes no grammatical sense at all, although some of the others might not mean what you expect them to.)

All of your other examples begin with “I look forward”, which, if taken literally, conveys the sense that my eyes are directed toward what is in front of me. Three of the four begin with “I look forward to”. The phrase “look forward to” is idiomatic if “to” is a preposition with a substantive as an object, in which case the entire phrase means “anticipate” (usually eagerly). This is only true in example (3), where “hearing” is a true gerund, and “hearing from you” is the noun phrase that functions as the object of the preposition “to”. Hence, (3) is normally understood to mean “I eagerly anticipate hearing from you”. We can also say:

3a: I look forward to your visit.

Even though (2) and (4) also begin with “I look forward to”, the phrase does not have the same idiomatic meaning as it does in (3) because it is not followed by a substantive. In these examples, “to” is not a preposition but a particle which constitutes part of the infinitive forms “to see” and “to hear”. (2) does not mean “I eagerly anticipate seeing you”. It means something more like “I can’t see you unless my eyes are pointed straight ahead”.

Something similar is true with (4), but it is more complicated because of the idiomatic sense of “hear from [someone]”, which means something completely different than “hear [someone]” and in fact does not necessarily involve the sense of hearing at all. If you were to ask me “Have you heard from your sister?”, I might respond, “Yes, I received a letter from her yesterday.”, but if you asked “Have you heard your sister?”, I would be more likely to respond, “Why? Is she having problems with her voice?”.

The only way I can really imagine (4) making logical sense is if the only communication we have is via the Internet (by e-mail, for example, or through the Grammar Exchange). Thus, I can only receive communication from you, or “hear from you”, if my computer screen is in front of me and I am looking at it. I look forward in order to hear from you. This all changes if we drop the word “from”:

4a: I look forward to hear you.

Here, the implication is that I am partially deaf. If you are sitting next to me while you are trying to talk to me, I can’t hear you unless I turn my head so that my ear is pointed toward you. I have to look forward in order to hear you.

Example (1) is particularly strange. As written, it sounds to me like it’s supposed to mean that seeing you causes me to look forward. I imagine a scenario where I am looking to the left and right and very comfortable doing so, until I see you, at which time I am reminded that I am supposed to be focused on what is in front of me. Upon seeing you, I go back to staring straight ahead. But once again, a very little thing can change the meaning of a sentence drastically. If we add a comma after “forward”, it becomes:

1a: I look forward, seeing you.

This implies that you are standing in front of me, so that I see you when I look forward.

As I said, you asked a complicated question.

Cathie,Welcome to the Grammar Exchange and thank you for your question.Please note that it helps me and my associates very much if you assign index numbers or letters to your examples, especially when you have so many of them. This makes it easier for us to refer back to them and to suggest variations. Since you haven’t done so, please allow me to assign these index numbers to your examples:1: I look forward seeing you.2: I look forward to see you.3: I look forward to hearing from you.4: I look forward to hear from you.5: I like to skating.6: I like to skate.7: I like skating.That was the easy part. Your question is actually much more complicated than it seems, and there is no way I can give you anything like a complete answer. There is no single rule here that applies to all situations. But let’s see how far we can get with me just addressing these seven examples for now.Your examples (5), (6), and (7) are the easiest to evaluate. In all of these, “like” is a transitive verb and requires a substantive (that is, either a noun phrase or something that will be understood as a noun in context) as a direct object, for example, “I like rice” or “I like Celtic folk music”. In (6), the(which is really not the same thing as “to+present simple”) serves as a noun. In (7), the word “skating” means the same thing as “to skate” does in (6). However, I can only understand “to skating” as it is used in (5) as an adverbial phrase. Therefore, (6) and (7) are both understandable and grammatically correct, but (5) is neither. (Interestingly, (5) is the only one of your seven examples that makes no grammatical sense at all, although some of the others might not mean what you expect them to.)All of your other examples begin with “I look forward”, which, if taken literally, conveys the sense that my eyes are directed toward what is in front of me. Three of the four begin with “I look forward to”. The phrase “look forward to” is idiomatic if “to” is a preposition with a substantive as an object, in which case the entire phrase means “anticipate” (usually eagerly). This is only true in example (3), where “hearing” is a true gerund, and “hearing from you” is thethat functions as the object of the preposition “to”. Hence, (3) is normally understood to mean “I eagerly anticipate hearing from you”. We can also say:Even though (2) and (4) also begin with “I look forward to”, the phrase does not have the same idiomatic meaning as it does in (3) because it is not followed by a substantive. In these examples, “to” is not a preposition but awhich constitutes part of the infinitive forms “to see” and “to hear”. (2) does not mean “I eagerly anticipate seeing you”. It means something more like “I can’t see you unless my eyes are pointed straight ahead”.Something similar is true with (4), but it is more complicated because of the idiomatic sense of “hear from [someone]”, which means something completely different than “hear [someone]” and in fact does not necessarily involve the sense of hearing at all. If you were to ask me “Have youyour sister?”, I might respond, “Yes, I received a letter from her yesterday.”, but if you asked “Have youyour sister?”, I would be more likely to respond, “Why? Is she having problems with her voice?”.The only way I can really imagine (4) making logical sense is if the only communication we have is via the Internet (by e-mail, for example, or through the Grammar Exchange). Thus, I can only receive communication from you, or “hear from you”, if my computer screen is in front of me and I am looking at it. I look forward in order to hear from you. This all changes if we drop the word “from”:Here, the implication is that I am partially deaf. If you are sitting next to me while you are trying to talk to me, I can’t hear you unless I turn my head so that my ear is pointed toward you. I have to look forward in order to hear you.Example (1) is particularly strange. As written, it sounds to me like it’s supposed to mean that seeing you causes me to look forward. I imagine a scenario where I am looking to the left and right and very comfortable doing so, until I see you, at which time I am reminded that I am supposed to be focused on what is in front of me. Upon seeing you, I go back to staring straight ahead. But once again, a very little thing can change the meaning of a sentence drastically. If we add a comma after “forward”, it becomes:This implies that you are standing in front of me, so that I see you when I look forward.As I said, you asked a complicated question.