What I want is riding a bike.

[sierkj]

I've read 2-3 English textbooks with the grammatical structure resembling

"What I want is [verb]+ing..."

ex:
"What I want is riding a bike."
"What I want to do now is watching a movie."

This seems incorrect to me and I've had several native English speakers/teachers telling me that it is incorrect.

Can someone please help me understand this structure?

 

[jutfrank]

The book is telling you the wrong thing. You need the infinitive form of the verb, not the -ing form.

What I want is to teach you how to use cleft sentences.
What I want is for you to get a decent grammar book.

 

[5jj]

Please tell us the title of that book and the name of the author.

 

[Tarheel]

I've read two or three English textbooks....

Grammatically, that is not wrong. However, it seems a bit odd. Surely you know whether it was two or three. (If you really don't know, I suggest, "I can't remember if it was two or three."

What I want is to go home.

What I want is going home.

 

[sierkj]

Please tell us the title of that book and the name of the author.

Title: 영어 문장의 결정적 문법들

Writer: 김치훈

Publisher: 사람in

 

[emsr2d2]

Strangely enough, we don't speak Korean. Please translate the title and author's name and write them in the alphabet we use in English.

 

[sierkj]

Strangely enough, we don't speak Korean. Please translate the title and author's name and write them in the alphabet we use in English.

Title: The Crucial Grammar of English Sentences
Writer: Chihoon Kim

 

[emsr2d2]

Title: The Crucial Grammar of English Sentences
Writer Author: Chihoon Kim

Thank you. This information is always required in post #1 whenever you quote someone else's work.

 

[Flask]

I've read 2-3 English textbooks with the grammatical structure resembling

"What I want is [verb]+ing..."

ex:
"What I want is riding a bike."
"What I want to do now is watching a movie."

This seems incorrect to me and I've had several native English speakers/teachers telling me that it is incorrect.

Can someone please help me understand this structure?

The structure of What I want is riding a bike can be used when What means the thing that:

What I bought is lying in the trunk. [= The thing that I bought is lying in the trunk.]

The above example is NOT a ("clefted") rearrangement of I bought lying in the trunk, which is ungrammatical, as is I want riding a bike. When, however, the verb does accept an -ing complement, the rearrangement is often OK:

What he remembers is answering her telephone call. [= He remembers answering her telephone call.]

 

[Tarheel]

In my humble opinion that's awkward at best.

 

[emsr2d2]

The structure of What I want is riding a bike can be used when What means the thing that:

What I bought is lying in the trunk. [= The thing that I bought is lying in the trunk.]

Since inanimate objects are incapable of riding bikes, that's not a sentence that could be used. It would have to be "[The person] who I want is riding a bike".

 

[Flask]

Since inanimate objects are incapable of riding bikes, that's not a sentence that could be used. It would have to be "[The person] who I want is riding a bike".

I fully agree, and neither of those meanings ("the thing that I want"; "the person that I want") is the meaning that the OP wants to express, anyway. I simply wanted to show that the structure [What I x] is [-ing-phrase]" is sometimes used.

In the first type of case ("What I bought is lying in the trunk"), not only does "What I bought" mean "the thing that I bought" or "that which I bought," but the verb phrase has progressive/continuous aspect.

In the second type of case ("What he remembers is answering her telephone call"), there is no progressive aspect. The -ing phrase specifies the value of the complement of "remembers." Answering her telephone call is what he remembers.

It is the second type of case that the OP is striving for, unsuccessfully, with "What I want is riding a bike." "Riding a bike" cannot function as the complement of "want." We can, however, say "I want to be riding a bike [when they arrive]."

And that last sentence can be converted into the second type. All we need to do is add "to be doing" and all will be well with the sentence in the right context:

What I want to be doing [when they arrive] is riding a bike. [= I want to be riding a bike when they arrive.]