About English Grammar: All we can to is...
I read an English story yesterday evening. There's a sentence like this — All we can do is help them. I was curious about the sentence pattern " All we can do is..." and checked online but only got confused.

Is that sentence correct? Does the sentence mean " All (that) we can do is (to) help them? " ? As far as I know, there's only one verb in a simple sentence, or there may be two or more verbs with the help of some conjunctions. However, there are two verbs "is, help" in the sentence now...

Question

About English Grammar:  All we can to is...
I read an English story yesterday evening. There's a sentence like this — All we can do is help them.  I was curious about the sentence pattern " All we can do is..." and checked online but only got confused.

Is that sentence correct? Does the sentence mean " All (that) we can do is (to) help them? " ?  As far as I know, there's only one verb in a simple sentence, or there may be two or more verbs with the help of some conjunctions. However, there are two verbs "is, help" in the sentence now...

Answer

"All we can do is help them." is a statement, and is correct. Rephrased, this means the same thing "We can but only help them."

Answer

Robert is 100% correct

Answer

That's a very common construction in English, though it is informal. You're right that it means, "all that we can do is to help them."

Answers · 3

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