¨Dejar de¨ means ¨to stop.¨ ¨Escribir¨ means ¨to write.¨ ¨De escribir¨ is nonsensical on its own.

ComicOzzie, when you say in English "I cannot stop to write" what you are saying (right?) is "I cannot (halt) IN ORDER to write. To stop(halt) is PARAR and in order to is PARA. Since they are almost the same word, that would make for a funny Spanish sentence but that's what is grammatical correct... That said, I've never come across a Real sentence like this in Spanish. You might be able to sub POR for PARA. But in no way would "No puedo dejar de escribir" mean "I cannot stop(halt) to write" It's practically obligatory to do research outside of Duo.. Hope this was helpful! :-)

Comic- While it is dejar de meaning stop I do agree with you that to say "I cannot stop to write" is acceptable.

None of my spanish teachers ever explained de as "to", but as "of", so "to" in this case would be a complete guess.

When is dejar used vs parar

My Spanish novia says that the correct spelling is "escribir" not "escobar" so right off the bat you lose cred :/

Btw the logic of your sentence makes no sense. I can say "I can't stop thinking about her" also "I can't stop to think about her" both mean exactly the same thing and funnily enough in Spanish there is one phrase for both interpretations. "No puedo dejar de pensar en ella".

From what I can find out with a quick google search, it appears that dejar means "to leave" or "to allow" while dejar de means "to stop"

January 20, 2014. There's a little used, obsolete form in English, "Leave off:, which has the meaning of stop. I almost wanted to translate this as "I can't leave off writing"" I would bet that the origin of "dejar de" as stop followed a similar path.

When you add "de" after dejar plus an infinitive, it means to stop doing something.

Dejo de fumar - I quit smoking

Ella deja de cocinar - She quit cooking/She stopped cooking

I made this mistake too. Basically, it's the reflexive form that is about allowing oneself (to do something).

I think that would be "no me puedo dejar escribir" or "no puedo dejarme escribir" (grain of salt, though. I'm not a native speaker.).

That's what I'm thinking.

Yea that should be

This sentence is literally my life

I was looking for a Hamilton reference! Lol

It is to stop (verb)-ing. As in to quit smoking, stop driving, stop singing.' It usually gets translated as 'quit' to make it clear that the Spanish verb for 'to stop' is not the same as this 'to stop -ing' something (to quit doing it).

Quit and stop have overlapping meanings. I can say Quit that or Stop that and mean the same thing.

Yeah, sometimes I don't even think I need the turtle, then I get it wrong because I didn't.

I think you misplaced a quotation mark. ¨Poder¨ means ¨can¨ or ¨to be able to,¨ so both can be used.

Don't make the mistake of applying English grammar rules to Spanish phrases. Also, see klgregonis's response below and any of the responses above that have already answered this question.

Escribiendo is the present participle. It is used in the Spanish progressive tenses, which are used much less frequently than ours. Estoy escribiendo I am writing (e.g perhaps you are interrupting me. I am in the process of writing right now) It is also used in other places where the English present participe verb form is used. Escribiéndolo fue difícil. Writing it was difficult. [It is one of the forms that attaches pronouns] But it is not a gerund in the English sense. It never can be used as a noun, nor after a preposition. That is done with the infinitive in Spanish.

Escriebiebdo is the past participle of escribir, but past participles are not gerund and do not act as nouns. For this reason you will never find this form directly following a preposition. That will always be an infinitive.

Mmm, excuse me miss, but I think that if you wanted to say, "I cannot stop to write", as in you can't stop doing something else, in order to then write, it would be more like, "no puedo parar para que puedo escribir". "No puedo parar de escribir" is more like I cannot stop from writing, or, simplified, I cannot stop writing. The grammar doesn't exactly match up here between English and Spanish - that's just the way it is.

I see it this way: the difference in the use of the word "to" between the sentence "I want to have a party for my mom" and "She is going to Paris to see her brother" is that in the first sentence the "to" is used to form the infinitive, and in the second it is standing in for the phrase "in order to." In Spanish (I believe) this use of "to" might be translated best with "para." My instinct is to translate your sentence as "No puedo dejar para escribir." Don't take my word for it, though; I have an instinct for grammar, but I am not fluent in Spanish yet.

Maybe? Dejar + de + infinitive is the more common way to say "to stop doing something"

I quit smoking - Yo dejo de fumar.

I gave up running - Yo dejo de correr.

"Parar" for stop is more like the stopping of movement, or the stopping of an action...

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/parar

People would probably understand what you meant but it would demonstrate that you don't speak the language very well/would sound like a total non-native speaker. :)

It would be like if someone said in English "I retreated home" when they meant "I went home" - both words convey that the person went home/sought refuge/found relief in going home" but there is definitely the right time and place to use each verb, and they are not used interchangably.

You should read the entire thread, this has been explained in several places. Spanish uses the infinitive where English uses the gerund. Exceptions are after words implying motion, such as seguir, andar, continuar, and after estar, when it makes a present progressive. The de is attached to dejar - it's dejar de with a verb following and not just dejar.

Yes parar de escribir should also be accepted. But when talking about one's stopping themselves or others from doing something, dejar de is much more common. You could never just use dejar to say stop, but dejar de infinitive means to stop the action. English has a colloquial expression in some parts of the US... To leave off doing something. I don't know if it is disappearing or I just haven't spoken to people who use it recently.

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/dejar%20de

Not quite. Terminar and acabar are equivalent to each other, but they both mean to finish or to end. Dejar de is like a verb you didn't mention, parar. They both mean to stop. As in English, things that stop aren't necessarily finished.

That's interesting. You are of course correct in that translation, but I understand why it was rejected. There is a slight meaning difference between saying in English I can't stop writing and I can't stop from writing. The problem is they are the same in Spanish. If they were focused on one translation they may not have thought of the other. I cannot stop writing is a more common construction.

I am not quite sure why you are bringing in German and French, but I would be glad to explain the similarities and differences between parar and dejar de. You will notice that I added the de after dejar, because dejar alone means to let or to leave. But dejar de is used in front of infinitives to mean to stop doing something. It is the equivalent of aufhören in German. Parar is normally about stopping motion or action. This makes it closer to aufhalten in German. A bus stop is call una parada de autobús, And the para in the compound words paraguas and parabrisas come from parar. The literal translation of these words would be stop waters (umbrella) and stop breezes (windshield). But the comparison with aufhören and aufhalten is not perfect. That is mostly due to the fact that dejar de has to be followed by an infinitive. So while I have to stop building today would be Tengo que dejar de construir hoy, I have to stop construction today would be Tengo que parar la construcción hoy. Both of those sentences would use aufhören in German. As for English, we have cease and halt, but even those cross meanings sometimes. You may see para a +infinitive in Spanish, but this means to stop to do something as in Pararon a comprar tortillas. They stopped to buy tortillas. This is opposed to dejaron de comprar tortillas which means they stopped buying tortillas. So the many of the similarities you find in the English don't exist in Spanish. While you may need your knowledge of other languages to understand some of what you see in Spanish, the only way to understand the differences between the two words in Spanish is to look at how they are used in Spanish.

Dejar when alone essentially means to leave or to let, but dejar de + infinitive is a set expression which means to stop doing something (the action of the infinitive). Modal verbs requiere no preposition before an infinitive, and a between the conjugated verb and the infinitive is most common, but many other verbs also take de. 1There is not necessarily any logic to this, especially from English which doesn't really have a system of prepositions that makes any more sense. You just have to memorize them

https://www.thoughtco.com/verbs-followed-by-de-and-an-infinitive-3079236

Never assume that the preposition used in English for any expression will be the same in Spanish, although there is a significant correlation. There are even a couple of expressions that use que (tener que to have to and haber que/hay que expressing something that needs to be done

Correct, when translated as individual words. However, the infinitive in Spanish is used in places we use the gerund in English. If only all languages followed the same grammatical rules - then we'd only have to learn vocabulary to speak another language well, and we'd all be polyglots!

In this case, 'dejar de + infinitive' means to stop doING something. In Spanish, they often use a phrase + the infinitive and it reads to us like a gerund.

No, it shouldn't. . Give up isn't the same as stop or quit. Give up is translated as renunciar, renunciar a, ceder, darse por vencido, traspasar, abandonar, but NOT as dejar. Also, we would never use the infinitive form after the phrasal verb Give up.