Re: savoir-connaître (was: Re: can-may)

>  <rant>I don't like
> that there is no distinction between "dürfen" (to be allowed
> to) and "müssen" (to have to) in French as well, both is
> "devoir". Or "lieben" (to love) and "mögen" (to
> like), ...</rant>
These two are often combined. :) For example, causatives often (in fact
in the majority of languages) can mean "permit X to do" as well as "make
X do" in languages which have morphological causatives. The same for
love and like.... I often have difficulty with like in foreign
languages. In Spanish for example loving someone is easy (you can use
either querer or amar... querer is more common), but saying you like
someone generally requires an indirect expression since saying something
along the lines of "Maria me gusta" (lit. Maria pleases me) gives
completely the wrong impression. I usually end up trying something like
"Maria me queda bien" (lit. Maria remains well to me = "Maria sits well
with me"). *thinks* In fact, most foreign languages I know either
combine the two, or have similar problems to Spanish in expressing one
or the other...

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