Files

Trey t 47a7871c38 Add 13 new grammar notes with 1010 exercises from video extraction

Scraped a 4h Spanish fundamentals YouTube video (transcript + OCR on
14810 frames), extracted structured content across 52 chapters, and
generated fill-in-the-blank quizzes for every grammar topic.

- 13 new GrammarNote entries (articles, possessives, demonstratives,
  greetings, poder, al/del, prepositional pronouns, irregular yo,
  stem-changing, stressed possessives, present/future perfect, present
  indicative conjugation)
- 1010 generated exercises across all 36 grammar notes (new + existing)
- Fix tense guide parser to handle unnumbered *Usages* blocks
- Rewrite 6 broken tense guide bodies (imperative, subj pluperfect,
  subj future) with numbered usage format
- Bump courseDataVersion 5→6 with TenseGuide refresh on upgrade
- Add docs/spanish-fundamentals/ with raw transcripts, polished notes,
  structured JSON, and exercise data

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-04-16 08:40:05 -05:00

1.7 KiB

Raw Permalink Blame History

12. The Verb "Poder"

Source: A Complete Guide To Every Fundamental In Spanish

Poder means "to be able to" / "can." It's a stem-changing verb (o → ue) and one of the most useful verbs in Spanish because it pairs with any infinitive to express possibility.

Key Rules

poder is a stem-changing verb: o → ue in the singular and 3rd-person plural forms (the "boot").
The nosotros and vosotros forms keep the original o (podemos, podéis).
Endings still follow the regular -er pattern.
Use poder + infinitive to express ability or possibility: Yo puedo hablar español.

Conjugation: poder (present indicative)

Pronoun	Form
yo	puedo
tú	puedes
él / ella / usted	puede
nosotros	podemos
vosotros	podéis
ellos / ellas / ustedes	pueden

The "boot" pattern: puedo / puedes / puede / pueden change the stem; podemos / podéis stay regular.

Examples

Spanish	English
Yo puedo hablar español.	I can speak Spanish.
Tú puedes aprender inglés.	You can learn English.
Él puede ayudar.	He can help.
Nosotros podemos ir.	We can go.
Ellos pueden llamar por teléfono.	They can call by phone.
¿Puedes ayudarme?	Can you help me?
No puedo dormir.	I can't sleep.

Notes & Gotchas

The stem change applies only in the "boot" forms — never in nosotros/vosotros.
Always follow poder with an infinitive (unchanged verb): puedo hablar, not puedo hablo.
poder doesn't take a preposition before the infinitive (no a, no que).
Other common stem-changing verbs follow the same boot pattern (e.g., dormir o → ue, querer e → ie).

1.7 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History