Learn can and could for ability - Can could and able to for ability

hello students welcome back today's lesson is  about how to use can could and able to for ability  

you can use can and could for general ability  to describe a general ability in english  

for the present tense talking about now  we use can to talk about the present  

or general ability for example i can do something  i can read french but i can't speak it be able  

be able can often be used here but i'll explain  that later in the lesson the future after now  

usually we use will be able to  to talk about future ability  

for example i'll be able to speak french in a  few months but we can use can if we are deciding  

something now about the future so deciding  now about something in the future for example  

i don't have time now but i can meet you  later tonight here's an example as a question  

can you come to my house on sunday the past before  now we use could for general ability to show that  

somebody could do something at any time whenever  she or he wanted was able or were able is also  

possible here example she could ride a bike  when she was five years old or we could say  

she was able to ride a bike when she was five  years old here's another example my father  

could speak four languages we don't normally  use could to say that somebody succeeded  

in doing something on just one occasion for this  we use was able or were able or we could use  

the word succeeded in something for example how  many tomatoes were you able to get we don't want  

to use could you get here we don't want to  say how many tomatoes could you get so maybe  

you just got home from shopping for food i can ask  you how many tomatoes were you able to get on this  

one shopping trip how many tomatoes were you able  to get here's an example using succeeded succeeded  

in after several tries i succeeded in climbing the  mountain let's look at could used for particular  

occasions in the past in certain cases we can use  could to say that someone was able to do something  

on one occasion we can use could with the words  see hear taste feel smell understand remember  

and guess i could smell the flowers i could  understand everything the teacher said  

this can also happen in subordinate clauses like  i'm so glad that everyone could come could with  

conditional use could can be used to mean would  be able to for example i could get a better job  

if i spoke another language right i  don't speak another language but if i did  

i could get another job now let's look at could  have we use a special structure to talk about  

some unrealized past ability this is to say that  a person was able to do something but they didn't  

try it for example he could have married anybody  he wanted to here he didn't try to get married  

but he could have gotten married if he tried  we can also use could have passed structure  

to criticize people for not doing something for  example you could have fixed the broken door  

why didn't you could have past  structure can also be conditional  

for example i could have won the contest if i had  tried i didn't try but if i had tried i could have  

won the contest so now you know more about how to  use can could and able to for ability and that you  

can use canon could for general ability thanks so  much for watching i'll see you in the next video