Two infinitives together? Never?

Two infinitives together? Never?
 

How would you make a statement in Spanish such as

I have spent most of the semester trying to learn


I was under the impression that two infinitives could never be connected.

There aren't two infinitives together in the English sentence. Nor are there two infinitives in the Spanish equivalent:
Me he pasado la mayoría del semestre tratando de aprender.

Remember, the word to that we associate with the infinitive is not really there in the Spanish infinitive. Quite often a preposition needs to precede a Spanish infinitive.

And by the way, there are many times when two infinitives will appear together, especially when describing abilities.
For example:
Para poder hablar mejor ... = To be able to speak better

Great explanation Rusty.

You are great Rusty, you seem a great teacher, Today Mexico on is day of TELETON 2009, please today everyone has to help to the children, PLEASE.

Thanks rusty..for some reason I though that tratando couldn´t be used like that.

Tienes que intentar mejorar tus notas :D
You must try to do it better with your grades.
other translation for "trying to learn" is "intentando aprender"
saludos :D

Perhaps you were thinking that trying was a gerund and when translated into Spanish you would use an infinitive.

my teacher is it's okay to have 2 infinitives together....but only one is conjugated...
No puedo nadar porque me lastimé las piernas y las brazos. (tell me if I made a mistake and if I'm right about the first sentence [my teacher........only one is conjugated.......])

We were talking about two infinitives together, and gave some examples above.
Here's another:

Por no poder nadar, el chico se ahogó.
= Because he couldn't swim, the boy drowned.

jessica your sentences it´s ok
now is see that your spanish is better, you´re improving your spanish very well. i would like to improve my english as you do it whit the spanish.

croalito said that in mexico is making the teleton because we need to help many persons .........
hay que ayudar a muchas personas con alguna enfermedad con capacidades diferentes.

Thanks :)
You're getting better as well. Remember if with is spelled w-i-t-h. :)

ok, i´ll remember that word .
thanks for made me a little bit corretion please understand me i can´t speak english yet, thank you again. jessica

you're welcome :)

I was. I was thinking that it shouldn´t be used because my Spanish teacher continuously reminds us that the present progressive should not be used often. I suppose that I just need to make the distinction between the present progressive and using the present participle on it´s own. From rustys post in the estar ¿ gerund thread I now see that it can be used in MANY other situations.

Thanks for the help