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If we're going off on a tangent: in Dutch, you can have a sentence ending in seven infinitives: "Ik zou hem wel eens hebben willen zien durven blijven staan kij
by gpvos 8y ago
If we're going off on a tangent: in Dutch, you can have a sentence ending in seven infinitives: "Ik zou hem wel eens hebben willen zien durven blijven staan kijken." (I would have liked to see him dare to stay stand watching.)
(Although Dutch and German syntax are almost identical, this doesn't work in German.)
- kirkules 8y agoIn English as well you can build sentences like "It's you I would love to love to love ... to love!", with arbitrarily many terminal infinitives.
- kashyapc 8y agoThanks for sharing that. I'm learning Dutch (Flemish) for the last two-ish years, taking night classes). I heard my teacher say you can string along three infinitives, but didn't realize you can go up to seven! I recently finished B-2 and now "C-1" level[+]---the most difficult so far. I'm going to persist... [+] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of...
- gpvos 8y agoThe sentence is a bit contrived, but any Dutch speaker will readily understand it. Three infinitives in a row is quite common, four is not that rare.
- michaericalribo 8y agoI’ve been learning* :D