The infinitive «мочь»

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

I’ve been told the infinitive form of мочь only occurs in dictionaries; Russians never use it in everyday speech. Is this true? How do you get around it?

Comments

hmmm

[dzhozef-derfler.livejournal.com]

doesn't «я могу» mean "i can"? i think it does, so saying just «мочь» is like saying, in English, "to be able to," and when do we even say that in the middle of a sentence...

Re: hmmm

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yeah... as I understand it, in English, you can't really form an infinitive of "can," "must," or "ought."

Have you ever heard "I want to can do that"? Generally, in infinitive, can turns to "to be able," must and ought turn to "to have."

Re: hmmm

[tangledweave.livejournal.com]

I want to be able to live in peace?

Re: hmmm

[jaspe.livejournal.com]

"Я хочу иметь возможность жить в мире" for instance :)

[fox-c.livejournal.com]

I think I see what you're saying. . .for instance in English we often say: I want to be able to do that! In Russian you just leave that part out: Я хочу ето делат!

Make sense?

[torick.livejournal.com]

One of the form of "мочь" is "помочь" - to help with abilities.
Я могу вам чем-нибудь помочь? May I help you?

[lex3.livejournal.com]

Мочь and помочь - two different verbs
Мочь - be able, can, may
Помогать (Помочь) - to help

[http://users.livejournal.com/_teemon_/]

They just look simular. Maybe they have same roots, but I'm not sure.

BTW, there is russian word "моча" (mochA) = urina.

[alex-inside.livejournal.com]

"нет мОчи терпеть" - can not withstand it anymore

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

here, мочь goes as a very old-fashioned, "rustic" noun, not a verb (нет мочи терпеть = I have not enough strenght to be patient.)

[ystrek.livejournal.com]

"Ибо нет для человека муки страшнее, чем хотеть отомстить и не мочь отомстить" - Гоголь, "Страшная месть".

[http://users.livejournal.com/_teemon_/]

Bingo! "There is no worse torment, that being eager to revenge and not having a possibility to do so".

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

“Possibility of”, I think.

English prepositions are very complex; if you think about which one you should use, you often find yourself in doubt, but if you don’t think about it you usually pick the correct one. This makes it hard to give explanations.

PS (with apologies)

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

“Possibility of doing so”, I should have said.

[g0mez.livejournal.com]

Хотеть - значит мочь, мочь - значит побеждать (Ш. Руставелли) (To will is to be able, to be able is to win)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

One of my friends posted a long story on his Web page. Each chapter was provided with two buttons: "Читать дальше" (literally, read farther, i.e. read on) and "Ну, не смочь" (literally: well, not to be able anymore.) Мочь/смочь are imperfect/perfect.