The structure do…ing is used to talk about activities that take a certain time or are repeated (for example hobbies and jobs). There is usually a determiner before the –ing form.
Read the following sentences.
- He reads a lot.
We can express the same idea using the structure ‘do a lot of’.
- He does a lot of reading.
More examples are given below.
- She travels a lot. = She does a lot of traveling.
- Your little boy talks a lot in the class. = Your little boy does a lot of talking in the class.
- I rode a lot in my youth. = I used to do a lot of riding in my youth. / I did a lot of riding in my youth.
- During the holidays we swam a lot at the beach. = During the holidays we did a lot of swimming at the beach.
Other determiners that can be used in this structure are: some, much, my, the.
- During the holidays I did some swimming and a lot of sleeping.
Note that the verb after do cannot have an object in this structure.
In negative structures we can use don’t do much + ing form.
- I don’t do much writing.
- She doesn’t do much gardening.
- I don’t do much reading.
- I didn’t do much riding in my youth.
- I don’t do much traveling.
- We don’t do much cooking at home.
- Their children don’t do much playing.