A question from this phrase " look forward to ..."
i distinctly remember my teacher told me that this phrase must be writen or spoken as "look forward to seeing" "look forward to chatting" so in a word " look forward to doing something.
so i wondering that if i say "look forward to see the greatest Olympics be held in China" instead of " look forward to seeing the greatest Olympics be held in China", is there something different expression between that two? could it cause a misconception? could the people can also understand me?

Question

A question from this phrase " look forward to ..."
i distinctly remember my teacher told me that this phrase must be writen or spoken as "look forward to seeing" "look forward to chatting" so in a word " look forward to doing something.
so i wondering that if i say "look forward to see the greatest Olympics be held in China" instead of " look forward to seeing the greatest Olympics be held in China", is there something different expression between that two? could it  cause a misconception? could the people can also understand me?

Answer

"look forward to doing something" is correct, if you say "look forward to do something" people can understand you but it's incorrect because "to" in this phrase is not a preposition for making an infinitive, it belongs to the phrase itself. for example in "nice to meet you", "to" doesn't belong to "nice" but you add it for making an infinitive.

you can say "I'm really looking forward to this weekend", it proves that the "to" in this phrase belongs to the whole phrase. so you can't say "look forward to do something"

Answer

look forward to 里面的 to 不是不定式，后面不能接动词原型，只能接名词或动名词（动词+ing）。

所以，look forward to sth. 或 look forward to doing 都是正确的，但look forward to do 是错误的。