Gerunds and "to," i.e. watching _ or listening to _

[dpad84]

Sorry if the title is confusing, I'm a little confused myself. A friend of mine is learning English and was asking about the phrase "listening to." Then he asked about "watching to," which I told him you don't say, but I couldn't give him a reason why you don't say "watching to TV," but you say "listening to music." Is there a reason we say "listening to (noun)" but not "watching to (noun)?"

[Tdol]

Not really- some verbs are followed by prepositions and others aren't. We say listen to but not hear to. You could call it a collocation or colligation.