Two infinitives together? Never?

[literacola]

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.

[Rusty]

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

[Tomisimo]

Great explanation Rusty.

[CrOtALiTo]

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.

[literacola]

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

[sosia]

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

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by literacola

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

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

[Jessica]

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.......])

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by jchen

my teacher is it's okay to have 2 infinitives together....
but only one is conjugated... When you conjugate an infinitive, it's no longer an infinitive. Two verbs can be used back-to-back. Sometimes they are left unconjugated (both are infinitives), sometimes only the first of the two is conjugated.
No puedo nadar porque me lastimé las piernas y los brazos.

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.

[lee ying]

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.

[lee ying]

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.

[Jessica]

Originally Posted by lee ying

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

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

[lee ying]

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

[Jessica]

you're welcome

[literacola]

Originally Posted by Tomisimo

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

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