What happens when you have three verbs in a row?

Question

If there are two verbs in a row, you dont conjugate the second. like, quiero practicar. but what if you want to say "I want to practice talking" would it it be quiero practicar hablando?

Taylor, welcome to the forum but please remember to use proper capitalization here for the learners of English, thank you. - Yeser007, May 31, 2011

Answer 1

but what if you want to say " i want to practice talking" would it it be quiero practicar hablando?

The last one, although it is formed from a verb, it is called a gerund, and it functions as noun. Notice that you could have said "I want to practice my conversational skills" or something like that.

In any case, you have a "to" in between, not just three verbs in a row. You can concatenate as many verbs as you want, in theory, but the subordinate ones will be used according to the general rules:

Prefiero no pensar que vamos a tener que forzarles a elegir a un presidente.

"Vamos" is conjugated because there is no way we can infer that "we" from the context, while the subject for the rest of the infinitives is obvious.

Answer 2

One way is to use the second two verbs in infinitive:

Quiero aprender a nadar

I want to learn to swim.

Second way, three verbs.Only the second is in infinitive, third is gerund.

Voy a trabajar escuchando música.

I am going to work, listening to music.

Thanks Frank, I've oftene wondered that myself. - Yeser007, May 31, 2011