Is "I must to finish my homework" correct?
Vivaan writes "I must to finish my homework", thinking "to" needs to go before every verb, the way it does in "I want to finish". His sister says modal verbs are not followed by "to". Who is right?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: His sister is right, it should be "I must finish"
Why
Vivaan has correctly noticed a real pattern — many verbs in English genuinely do connect to a second verb using "to", exactly as in "I want to finish" or "I need to go". Modal verbs, though — must, can, will, should, might, and others — belong to their own special category that behaves differently: they connect directly to the plain base form of the next verb, with no "to" in between at all. "Must to finish" inserts a connector that modals simply never use, unlike ordinary verbs such as "want" or "need". Test: run through several modals the same way — "I can to swim", "I should to sleep", "I will to try" — every single one sounds wrong with "to" added, and correct the moment it's removed: "I can swim", "I should sleep", "I will try", confirming this is a genuine rule for the whole modal category, not a one-off exception. His sister is right: modal verbs like "must" connect straight to the base verb with no "to" — "I must finish", not "I must to finish".
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