Hello,
I recall from German class several years there exists 4 infinitve cases:
Present Active: To drive Fahren
Perfect Active To have driven Gefahren sein
Present Passive To be driven Gefahren werden
Perfect Passive To have been driven Gefahren worden sein
That said, consider the following sentence:
I have wanted to drive to the coast. There is a modal with a present perfect verb conjugation, so in german, the sentence should be as follows:
Ich habe zur Küste fahren gewollt.
According to some sources, present pefect verb tenses with a modal form a double infinitve as follows:
Ich habe zur Küste fahren wollen.
I can't seem to understand this rule for the case of the present perfect tense with a modal, as is seems to contradict the rule for modals, which is a conjugation of the modal +1 of the 4 infinitives above.
Regards,
Scott
Infintives

SRA11
January 24, 2009

(deleted)
January 25, 2009
Hi there,
yes indeed some grammar rules can be confusing.
*Ich habe zur Küste fahren gewollt. * is grammatically incorrect.
Grammatically its correct to say:
Ich habe zur Küste fahren wollen.
However in spoken German you will very rarely hear someone say it this way. You are more likely to hear:
Ich wollte zur Küste fahren.
The interesting thing about language is that so often the spoken language doesn't match what you learn in the books. Languages are alive and change as well.
Often you are better of listing to the radio or using other resources where you can expose yourself to spoken German rather than only focusing on the grammatical side of things.
I hope that helps.

SRA11
January 28, 2009
Hi Nathalie,
Thnaks for the reply. I discovered that the reason for the double infintive in the present perfect case is rather arbitrary are thre are exceptions to the rules. English certainly has its fair share.
I orignally asked because I have freinds that live way in the south of Bavaria and I try to help them with their English. (In addition to them helping me learn Bavarian.) The present perfect case is much more heavily used in English and my emails to them (auf Deutsch) are written as such.
Scott