Knowing how to do something
I know how to fix the lamp.
Left column: the order of the concepts, as chips — the slots you fill (who, action, thing, when) and the fixed words the language adds (a modal, a negator, a question marker). Click a slot, here or in the bar above, to choose what goes in it. Right column: the sentence those concepts make, the other orders the language allows, and the other ways to say it — each with what it changes. The rows are the languages switched on at the top of the page.
Try:
| Language | The order of the concepts | The sentence, other orders, other ways to say it |
|---|---|---|
| EnglishEnglish | know how to modal English marks a learned skill only when it wants to: 'know how to' is explicit, 'can' covers skill and circumstance alike. | I know how to fix the lamp. Other ways to say it I can fix the lamp. neutral everyday English uses plain 'can' for a skill too — 'I can swim'. Many languages refuse to: French says je sais nager, Chinese 会, Korean -ㄹ 줄 알다. |
| FrançaisFrench | sais modal savoir + infinitive for a learned skill: je sais nager. je peux nager means the pool is open. English 'I can swim' hides the difference French insists on. | Je sais réparer la lampe. |
| EspañolSpanish | sé modal saber + infinitive for a learned skill: sé nadar, 'I know how to swim'. puedo nadar only says nothing stops me. English 'can' covers both; Spanish splits them as French does. | Sé arreglar la lámpara. |
Hover a word to see which concept it fills. The verb is always in its dictionary form: every pattern here is built on a modal, which carries the person and the tense, so any verb stays grammatical in every language. Where the modal is an ending (Korean, Japanese, Hindi's 'can'), the stem is computed. What this cannot show is agreement beyond the modal — adjectives, plural objects — which the grammar chapters cover.
For the same idea said at three levels of politeness, see Compare.