Can vs Could | Learn English Vocabulary

want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com hi everybody my name is alicia in this lesson i'm going to talk about the differences between can and could this lesson is going to include a lot of information and some example sentences if you want to know more about any of these points try searching our youtube channel for a lesson with some more detail okay let's get started with the first point number one up here the first way to use can and could that i want to talk about is to express abilities so an ability that refers to something we are able to do or not able to do when we want to talk about a present ability something we can do now i just used can to express that something we have the ability to do now we use can plus a present tense verb this expresses a present ability something we can do now it's possible for us to do that now to make the negative form we use can not or can't can't i can't do something when we want to talk about a past ability for example something in our childhood or something when we were in school we use could plus a present tense verb again so this verb in past and present form uses a present tense in this position this verb here we always use a present tense verb in this position this expresses a past ability we know this because we're using could in this pattern let's take a look at a couple of examples of this first a pair of present tense statements the first one here is i can speak english i can speak english so a very basic pattern hopefully many of you can use here we see can plus speak in this case speak is a present tense verb and then we have the language here so a reminder we use speak when we're talking about our language abilities not i can talk or i can say but i can speak english of course we could change this to a negative i can't speak french for example we can use the same pattern just replacing can with the negative can't i can't let's look at a different one though she can't swim she can't swim so here my subject has changed yes to she there's no change here to reflect the subject and swim my verb following can't remains in the present tense so these are very basic examples of how to express our abilities with can and can't in present so let's compare this then to using could to make past tense expressions so as i said could will change from can to could but the verb does not change let's see how we use this he could speak spanish when he was a kid he could speak spanish when he was a kid this is a past tense ability statement and something you'll notice is very common in these past ability statements is a point in time or like a time period when so he could speak spanish when when he was a kid so you'll notice this is also in past tense not when he is a kid when he was a kid at that point in time in the past it's finished now so we'll often include a time period or a point in time in the past to help us understand this ability one more example here this is a negative example we couldn't watch the movie it was too violent we couldn't watch the movie it was too violent so here this is a past tense negative couldn't is the reduced form of could and not we could not watch the movie so we could say yes this is kind of like a possibility statement which i'll talk about a little bit later but we can also use this kind of expression to explain it was not possible for us to watch the movie like i didn't have the ability to watch that movie we might use an expression like this so the reason here instead of a point in time which we probably understand from the situation like we couldn't watch the movie last night or we couldn't watch the movie last weekend instead of a point in time i included a reason so why couldn't i watch the movie or why couldn't we watch the movie it was too violent so it is the movie the movie itself this was past tense a past situation violent violent so this means there's like maybe like action people attacking other people hurting other people maybe very graphic scenes extreme or intense images it's too violent so we can use couldn't to talk about these kinds of things too i'll explain a little bit more when i talk about point number three in this lesson so this is how we use can and could for present and past tense abilities all right let's continue on to point number two for this lesson point two is using can and could for requests and for offers so this is actually a bit simpler than this point i think the difference here when you're making requests and offers with can and could it's just that can sounds more casual it sounds a little bit more friendly good sounds a bit more polite so both of these are okay to use in most situations if you want to sound a little bit more formal a little bit more polite you can use could in most everyday situations we use can so we begin our request or our offer usually with can and we make a question with it there are a couple of other variations too i'll show you a couple examples so let's look at using can first so let's begin our sentence our question with can here can you help me with my homework can you help me with my homework this is a request please help me in other words so instead of please help me with my homework which sounds like a word desperate maybe please help me using can you is kind of like asking do you have the ability to help me with my homework is it possible would it be okay so it's a bit softer than using please so please help me it's okay there's not a communication problem but can you help me with my homework sounds a bit nicer a little bit more friendly now let's look at using can to make an offer i can buy you a coffee if you like so if you like is like if you want one if it's okay do you want one if you like a nice offer expression i can buy you a coffee so here in the offer pattern can comes before the verb so again we can think of this a little bit like an ability so it's like the speaker is saying right now i have the ability to buy you a coffee would you like a coffee but that doesn't sound natural it's like saying right now this is possible i can buy you one so is that okay i can buy you a coffee if you like so this is a nice friendly way to make an offer let's compare this then to using could in similar patterns so as i said could is going to sound a little bit more formal a little more polite first example is a request could you please send me the files could you please send me the files so i've added please here to show again it's a little more formal and in this case perhaps it's a business situation maybe it's a business situation send me the files so this is a work request perhaps maybe that's why the speaker is using could and please you'll also notice that when i'm using could or can to create a request question i'm following the word can or could with the person i want to help me so in this case i'm using you for both of my sentences but you might hear some sentences where the speaker asks for someone else to do something so this person is not in the conversation i'm talking to someone else i would like ask this person please ask that person to do something like can he join the meeting later for example that's something that you might hear too for these requests and for probably a lot of requests though we use you after can or could but you may hear he or she or they used in these patterns too okay let's finish this part with an offer using could if it's helpful we could teach your staff about the new software if it's helpful if it's helpful so again it's a softening expression kind of like if you like but this sounds a little more formal if it's helpful if you like we could teach your staff about the new software so this is an offer we are offering to teach your staff about the new software we use could to do that we could do this like again we have this ability yes but in this case could is not referring to a past tense situation we're using could to make a polite offer we could teach your staff so this is one example of how to do it okay so this is how we use can and could to make requests and to make offers let's continue then i want to move back to this side of the board to point three for this lesson so i talked a little bit about this in point number one but we also use uh could to talk about present and past possibility so first let's look at a couple of sample patterns this is probably i think these two the most common patterns you might hear they use could and could not so first an explanation in many of these possibility statements we use could plus the verb be plus often some kind of like adjective phrase when we make the negative form we use could not plus the verb be plus our adjective phrase so when we make a past tense possibility statement we follow a similar pattern but we use have been instead of be so this pattern is our present tense possibility statement a present situation have been this could have been pattern refers to a past possibility so let's take a look at some example sentences that use these patterns first [Music] the meeting starts at 2 but nobody's here i could be in the wrong place so here is my could be so i included this part to show the situation situation and context are quite important for these kinds of statements so in this case the speaker is waiting for a meeting that starts at two and the speaker is thinking to himself or herself hmm the meeting starts at 2 but nobody's here so i could be in the wrong place another way to say that is it's possible i am in the wrong place wrong means incorrect i'm in the incorrect place the meeting is somewhere else so could be expresses this possibility there's a possibility i'm in the wrong place you might also hear might used here instead of could i might be in the wrong place so the difference between might and could is very small in this situation i could be in the wrong place is very neutral it's not like positive or negative there's not a high chance or low chance just it's possible if i said i might be in the wrong place it sounds like there's a higher chance like maybe uh 50 or 60 it's not a rule but there's a higher chance i'm in the wrong place like i might be in the wrong place sounds a little bit more certain than i could be in the wrong place so it's just the level of certainty there so i could be in the wrong place let's look at another example this one is a past situation a past situation it's a conversation person a says hey was that michael so you're on the street was that michael over there in that coffee shop for example b says no that couldn't have been michael he's out of town out of town so out of town means away from the city so here i'm using couldn't have been michael so that means that guy over there you pointed to that couldn't have been michael could not have been this means it's impossible that was michael it is there's no chance absolutely no chance that was michael i know because he's out of town he's out of town he's not here so couldn't have been means impossible that couldn't have been michael he's out of town so we use these two patterns to express possibility and yes please keep in mind that this negative i've used here couldn't have been means not possible not possible so couldn't be as well the negative in the present form is also reflective of an impossible situation so here i used the positive could be meaning it's just possible but when you use the negative form it means something is impossible so for example let's imagine the speaker in this situation came to the correct place so the speaker looks at his or her watch and says hm the meeting starts at two o'clock and everybody is here i couldn't be in the wrong place it's impossible i'm in the wrong place because everybody is here i know i'm in the correct place so i couldn't be in the wrong place i'm in the correct room so impossibility is reflected with use of the negative form with the positive form it's just simple possibility very neutral final point here we make questions with this same kind of pattern so we do this often when we're thinking like thinking to ourselves so i'm alone and i'm thinking to myself about something or when i need to confirm something with someone else so an example could this be the correct building so could this be the correct building i would use this if i'm like checking my phone checking the gps on my phone searching for a place i have a meeting something i'm looking around and i think this building is correct i think to myself um could this be the correct building so that's a that's a sentence or a question a native speaker might say um i feel in most situations though we just say is this the correct building we just say it with is could this sounds more like is it possible this is the correct building so it might sound a little bit more formal i feel like in everyday speech more commonly we say is this the correct building but you might sometimes hear could used in this kind of pattern let's look at one more example could i have made the wrong decision could i have made the wrong decision so again the speaker is thinking about something in the past or maybe they're speaking to a friend could i have made we know this is a past expression because of this grammar right here could i have made have made shows us that this is something the speaker chose chose to do in the past so could i have made the wrong decision could be the speaker thinking out loud to himself or herself is it possible i made the wrong decision or the speaker could be asking someone else could i have made the wrong decision and they're expecting some kind of opinion so we're using these patterns to talk about possibility so you might hear some questions that use could in this way but keep in mind these are a little bit different from these offer type questions we talked about okay let's move along then to point number four for this lesson point number four is about unreal situations unreal situations so when we use could with unreal situations there are quite a few patterns that we can use but i wanted to introduce just a couple of very um kind of simple ways that we use this so i've i've made just this very simple um pair of if clause and main clause and i've got here main clause with could so a point to be careful of is when you're making your unreal statement and you're using this if something something main clause something something pattern make sure your could is in your main clause we do not use could in the if clause so no could goes here your modal verbs in general don't put them in the if clause put them in the main clause so that means like will won't may might all those words put them in your main clause could as well so there are a few different patterns that we use with unreal situation so i want to talk about these two they have a little bit of challenging grammar so let's take a look first one if i won the lottery i could buy a house if i won the lottery i could buy a house here's my if clause if i won the lottery comma i could buy a house so here is could so could is used yes to talk about this unreal situation so we know it's not real because of this if right here so that means i have not won the lottery uh by the way lottery is a game so we can win a large money prize uh by chance so we buy a card or a ticket and maybe we get a large prize for that it's a game kind of gambling anyway if i won the lottery meaning i have not won the lottery but if i did i could buy a house so this could is reflective of this possibility point or kind of you can think of it as disability point too a little bit but it means i would be able to so i would have lots of money so it would be possible to buy a house so we use could to reflect that if i won the lottery i could buy a house possibility here so we do not use can in this case we use could because it's an unreal situation we don't use this can to talk about these unreal situations please use could here let's upgrade a little bit more challenging grammar here if clause again if we had finished work earlier today if clause if we had finished work earlier today we could have gone to the movie theater we could have gone to the movie theater so this is a very challenging sentence to understand let's take a look if we had finished work earlier earlier today earlier than we did so we finished work at 8pm but if we had finished so this is referring to a past action it's complete if we finished work or if we had finished work at 5 pm for example earlier then we finished we actually finished at 8 but if we had finished earlier maybe 5 we could have gone to the movie theater so could have gone this use of could refers to an activity in the past a possible past activity that would have been possible if this part were true so again to recap we finished work at eight we could not go to the movie theater in this situation but if we finished work earlier if we had finished work earlier for example 5 pm in that situation which is not real did not happen we could have gone to the movie theater it would have been possible so we use these kinds of sentences to talk about all this stuff in the past that did not happen but we just want to dream about it so this is an example of how we use could and again we use could here not can we make a past tense examples or past tense pattern rather by using have plus the past participle form of the verb so again a challenging grammar point but this is one we use a lot to dream about past situations okay let's finish this lesson with point number five kind of a small point so i want to go back to point two here we talked about using can and could to make requests and offers another thing you might hear is using can't and couldn't to make suggestions so you'll notice all of these use the negative form so the difference here is that when you use the positive as we talked about in point two positive form sounds a bit more like a request it's like you want something when you use the negative though it's like you're giving something you're giving a suggestion so using the can is a little more like you're pulling maybe information or you're pulling something using can't is like you're you're giving a suggestion or you're giving advice so we use can't or couldn't in the same way that we use can and could to sound a bit more polite and we often pair this we often use this together with just just as like a is a modifier it changes the feeling to sound like simpler or a little more gentle like just a simple suggestion just a small suggestion so can't you for example you is very common here as i talked about in these patterns but we can use he she they we and so on um plus for present tense uh situations for present tense um sentences suggestions we use a present tense verb here for couldn't we can talk about again present tense situations or we can imagine as we did here we can imagine a past tense situation and you want to give advice you want to give a suggestion about that past situation you can do that with couldn't plus past participle verb form as we did here so some examples of this first can't you just leave earlier can't you just leave earlier so someone who's always late for example can't you just leave earlier you could remove just that's okay can't you leave earlier but just softens it it's like this is a small suggestion can't you just leave earlier another one couldn't you just call to confirm couldn't you just call to confirm it's a small suggestion so sounds a little more polite because we're using couldn't here finally couldn't you have created a bigger budget for the project couldn't you have created a bigger budget for the project so this is another past tense situation so we're dreaming here again so couldn't you have created shows us this was a past thing that someone did the listener did so the speaker created or sorry the listener created a budget for the project the speaker is saying couldn't you have created a bigger budget for the project so this is giving a suggestion or rather the speaker's opinion about a choice or a decision the listener made in the past so we use these negative forms to give suggestions to give advice to give opinions uh not so much requests or offers okay so that's a lot of information a lot of different ways to use can and could and also there are some patterns there are many patterns that i did not talk about in this lesson so you can try to i think use these five points maybe to understand a little better the different uses of can and could as you listen and as you read as well so i hope that this is helpful for you again if you want to know more about any of these points you can try searching our youtube channel to see if there's another whiteboard video specifically about one of these points so please take a look at that if you enjoyed this lesson too 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Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 01 2021