More general question about little words between two infinitives

Question

My question is about a quiz question in this unit: "J'ai décidé d'apprendre à jouer du piano cette année." How do you know it's "apprendre *à* jouer" instead of "apprendre *de* jouer," for example. I think that French verbs differ in this respect, but I haven't seen any systematic explanation of it, and I don't even know how to talk about it in a way that could make internet search productive. Do you have any teaching materials about this, or can you help me to understand it better? Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

Hi Max,
We now have some lists of verbs which take à or de before an infinitive. 
https://french.kwiziq.com/learn/theme/1048233
https://french.kwiziq.com/learn/theme/3975140
https://french.kwiziq.com/learn/theme/3812349
There will be more so, look out for them...

Answer

There's no rule, rhyme or reason to this, I know. Some words take à, some take de and some can take either. You simply have to memorize this along with the word.

Apprendre à faire qqc. -- To learn to do something.
Décider de faire qqc. -- To decide to do something.