"I go to the woods to forget."
Translation:Chodím do lesa zapomenout.
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What is the difference between those two sentences - "Chodím do lesa zapomenout" and "Chodím do lesa, abych zapomněl"?
Just the grammar. One uses a subordinate clause of purpose, the other the infinitive. No difference in the meaning.
The unavailability of the infinitive structure for "Piju zapomenout" or "Držím dietu zhubnout" is really interesting. Seems the "chodím kam dělat co" is its own animal. On the other hand, the goofy "Jezdím tam, abych sbíral houby." suggests a lot of subtle stuff is going on with these infinitives.
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I had the same question in the lesson with abych etc. So ' piju zapomenout ' is also grammatically correct? Are there cases where we need a form of aby? Or is it always ommitable?
No, "piju zapomenout" is not possible. As nueby mentions, "chodím kam dělat co" is its own animal.
That's a good sentence, but due to the one-time meaning of "jít", it means "I am going to the woods to forget". It could be translated as "I go..." only if we included something like "Pokaždé, když mi někdo ublíží, jdu do lesa, abych zapomněl."
Further to the previous discussion on the structure of statements of intention in Czech, (as expressed in English by verb + infinitive, with the words "in order" being an optional extra - "I go to the woods to forget" = "I go to the woods in order to forget") are we saying that this verb + infinitive format is also a universal option in Czech or only possible for certain actions, such as "zapomenout"?
You can use any infinitive. The point is in the verb "chodit" that can accept infinitives. Many verbs cannot, but verbs of movement can (and in many languages, not just in Czech or English).
So to check I understand: "I am studying to improve my Czech" could not be verb + infinitive in Czech, but "I am going to Czechia to improve my Czech" could be?
Yes. The verbs of movement historically used to use even a different form, but that form (supine) merged with the infinitive hundreds of years ago. Again, not just in Czech. Even in more distant languages like Latin it was connected with the verbs of motion.