Can 2 infinitives be used together?

Question

Is it correct to use two infinitives together such as: "Para poder empezar inmediatamente, es necesario que Ud. pague ahora."

English translation: In order to be able to begin immediately, it is necessary that you pay now.

Si, es correcto :) - aileribel, Feb 1, 2016

Muchisimas gracias, aileribel. - Pajaro44, Feb 1, 2016

Good question mate. - ray76, Feb 2, 2016

Answer 1

Jubilado, I've been trying to think of a sentence with 3 infinitives in a row and it's hard! I thought of: El querer poder comprar algo es malo cuando uno está intentando ahorrar. Yet I think querer is nominalised in this sentence, so I don't know if it counts. Also using poder seems a little redundant to me (but it's there for the sake of using 3 verbs)

In your example, empezar saber sounds odd, something is missing. Empezar a saber is better, but this still sounds strange. It's a weird combination of verbs, because you don't normally "start" knowing something. Maybe it would go better with some other verb such as aprender. Mi hijo está empezando a aprender el abecedario en la escuela for example.

Answer 2

I wondered what you meant when I read the title but you have a very interesting example. It looks good to me an non-fluent user of Spanish, and I thought of using 3 in a row: "Nos preguntas para poder empezar a saber si es posible." One of our native speakers or more advanced students will let us know.

Edited note: the word empezar before another infinitive is followed by "a". Thanks to aileribel!

Gracias por su respuesta. - Pajaro44, Feb 1, 2016

I wonder if a sentence that contained something like "para querer poder aprender a nadar" or somesuch would work. :) - bosquederoble, Feb 2, 2016