Is '去+verb' similar to 'to infinitives' in English?

Question

I am a collector. I collect sentences which I find interesting or exemplary for certain syntactical structures. I just stumbled over another example of this structure, so I thought I would ask the question here. These are some of my 'to infinitive' collection. There seems to be a remarkable similarity between this use of 去 + verb and the English to + infinitive. Is this more apparent than real? Maybe this is only Modern Chinese, under foreign influence. Can this kind of structure be found in Old Chinese? Does Chinese have a 'to infinitive'? (these are not all complete sentences, just the bits I saved) 如何去尽责 理解为**去**爱别人 有专门**去**学这方面的知识 可能是错过了真正**去**生活的机会。 用自己的行动做表率，**去**影响自己的子女和整个社会。 Just thought I'd throw this in, 4 去s in one short text: 人们把老师比作“春雨”，把学生比作“春苗“，春苗需要春雨**去**浇灌。老师就如那绵绵的春雨，用丰富的知识**去**开启学生的智慧，用优秀的人格**去**培育学生的品德，用无私的奉献精神**去**熏陶学生的心灵。

Answer 1

The sentences you have collected are using the same way of "去 ", which can be translated as "to infinitive".

However, the character " 去" itself has many meanings and ways to use, similar like English word "go". Depends on the words following "go", it can mean very differently. So "to infinitive" is just one of many meanings of this character.

Here is the translation of 去:

Quote translation:

"English Definition: to go; to go to (a place); (of a time etc) last; just passed; to send; to remove; to get rid of; to reduce; to be apart from in space or time; to die (euphemism); to play (a part); (when used either before or after a verb) to go in order to do sth; (after a verb of motion indicates movement away from the speaker); (used after certain verbs to indicate detachment or separation)"