it's crucial to develop / developing

[Boris Tatarenko]

There are six areas which are crucial to developing / develop good study habits. Work on these and you will become an effective student.

It's written "developing" in the text, but I'm wondering whether "develop" works. :roll:

 

[tzfujimino]

Hello, Boris.

Well, only "developing" works in your sentence, in my opinion. The "to" there is a preposition, not a marker for an infinitive (infinitive marker).

 

[Boris Tatarenko]

How did you understand that "to" wasn't a marker for the infinitive? I cannot understand it.

 

[tzfujimino]

X is crucial to/for Y.
X is essential to/for Y.

Now what type of word would you put in Y?

:-D

 

[tedmc]

This might be easier to understand:
Something is crucial to something (a noun, "doing"). (correct)
Something is crucial to do something (a verb/action) (wrong)

 

[tzfujimino]

I think I can understand Boris's confusion.
He might have read the original sentence as:

There are six areas which are crucial [in order] to develop ...

I'm not sure if it's natural English, but I think it's grammatically possible.

 

[Boris Tatarenko]

I think I can understand Boris's confusion.
He might have read the original sentence as:

There are six areas which are crucial [in order] to develop ...

I'm not if it's natural English, but I think it's grammatically possible.

Yes, I read the sentence this way. :roll:

Both of you explained perfectly my misunderstanding to me.