Eli5: why is it that nearly every verb that gets translated into English is translated as “to X”? For example; German: “kaufen”=English: “to buy”; Spanish: “gusto” =English: “to like”. Why is that?
In: Other
It’s called the infinitive form of a verb. It’s special in that it can be used without specifying the person or thing that is doing the action signified by the verb. So when the verb is in infinitive form it can mean an action in itself, without the actor. However, “gusto” in your example is not in infinitive, it’s first person singular present simple (meaning “I make myself liked”), or a noun (“pleasure”). Infinitives in Spanish end in “ar”, “er” or “ir”.
You are referring to what can be called the ‘to-infinitive’.
Modern grammar is a collection of old habits 🙂 Habits develop and change, often with group or geographical specificity, at least initially.
At some point in the past, in England, in the middle-ages between a shift from old English and Middle English, the preposition ‘to’ became associated with verbs in a way that seems to suggest SOMETHING but it’s kind of tricky to say WHAT, exactly, people had in mind. Is ‘to’ being used as a modal verb? Is the verb being used as a noun??? It’s relatively contested.
In other languages, the ‘to’ preposition appears not to have been on this same cultural journey.
That’s where to the term “split the infinitive” comes from. “To be” is literally a single thought. Many other languages use a single word: “etre” in French, for example. So when people say “he needs to really be good”, they’ve broken up “to be” – split it, if you will – and added a word between. It should be “he really needs to be good”, or “he needs to be really good,”
Edit for clarity. The bad example above leaves it vague as to what needs to occur. Are we desperate that he’s good, or do we need him to be extremely good. The position of “really” clears it up once it’s in the proper spot. If it’s life or death if he isn’t good, he really needs to be good. If he needs to prove his angelic qualities, he needs to be really good. Putting really between “to be” ruins our ability to know what the intention is. (Typing on an iPad sucks, btw. Sorry about all the edits.)
Why is “to” put before the verb’s plain form? Tradition or history: traditionally some people thought that the infinitive in English was best described as the “to” form. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language argues (chapter 14, section 1.4.) that the “to” is not really part of the verb as such, rather a subordinator for verb phrases; but traditionally dictionary makers and older school grammars would say that “to make” is the infinitive, the form used after, for example, “she wants” — “she wants _to_ go.” The argument over a special infinitive form that uses “to” versus just a plain form (dictionary-headword form) plus a verb-phrase subordinator isn’t really ELI5. (One other person here calls it “contested.”) But the answer that people used to think that “to” marks the infinitive, and that lots of people still think that way at least when putting together dictionaries, might be ELI5 enough.
One additional thing is that you may just be inadvertently glossing over the other conjugations of the verbs. Of course, if you cherry pick all the infinitive forms of the verbs, they’re going to translate to “To X”.
But as mentioned, that is a single form of the verb. Going back to Spanish for instance, anyone who’s taken Spanish or some other second languages is familiar with the dreadfully boring process of conjugating verbs AKA writing out all six conjugations. Spanish, if I’m remembering has six. As mentioned elsewhere, “gusto” is actually the first person singular. It would be used in some sentence like *furiously brushes off dusty Spanish knowledge* “Me gusto la biblioteca.” or, “I like the library”.
However there are also versions for inclusive plural (We), second person (you) uh, third person singular (he/she), third person plural (They) and some others I can quite remember involving “you” somehow.
All of them are the same core verb but end slightly differently. Gustar for infinitive, gusto, gusta, gustamos, etc.
I’m not sure what all was involved in, or how long it took you to come to your conclusion, but you may have just been looking at an incomplete puzzle as well.
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