Thread: to be

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

I try to translate expressions as: "He is to clever to be just a simple teacher", "He is too polite to be Russian"
I cannot do it because russians don't use the verb to be.

How doesn't we?

The answers are:

Он слишком умен, чтобы быть простым учителем
Он слишком вежлив для русского

Well, the last one doesn't use быть but the first one does