Notes: COULD versus CAN = Ability

Can = is/are/am able to = bisa / dapat / mampu.

Can’t = is/are/am unable to or isn’t/aren’t able to = tidak bisa
(in present time: now, today, at the moment, this time, nowadays, resently).
Could = was/were able to = bisa / dapat / mampu.
Couldn’t = was/were unable to or wasn’t/ weren’t able to = tidak bisa
(in past time: years ago, last year/month/week/night, yesterday, when I was young)
Example:

Now and Back Then on Information and Technology:

Now we can call friends by a mobile phone. My parents couldn’t do that when
they were kids. They didn’t have any mobiles, but they could call friends by landline
phones or candlestick phones. Of course, they couldn’t text messages like we can now.
They also couldn’t carry the phones everywhere they wanted like what we can do now.

Years ago my mom couldn’t pay things using card or e-money. She used paper
money/ bank note or coins. Life can be very simple nowadays as we don’t need to bring
the amount of money, just a light piece of card.

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For Class Discussion:

Answers:
1. 7.
2. 8.
3. 9.
4. 10.
5. 11.
6. 12.