It began to rain/began raining

[joham]

It began to rain/began raining when we got home. Do both 'to rain' and 'raining' work as well for the sentence, please?

 

[Skrej]

Yes.

 

[emsr2d2]

They're both grammatical but, for reasons I can't explain, BrE speakers tend to use "to rain" with "began" and "raining" with "started".
"It began raining" sounds odd to this BrE speaker. "It started raining" doesn't.

 

[jutfrank]

I'd use started in both versions.