Gerunds: Turning Verbs Into Nouns

The gerund is sometimes defined as a verb form that can be used as a noun, such as the word "smoking" in the sentence "smoking is bad for your health." However, the Spanish gerund — unlike the gerund of Latin — generally cannot be used as a noun. Thus, the equivalent Spanish of the sample sentence would be "fumar es malo para la salud." Note that the infinitive fumar, not the gerund fumando, is used.