COULD / WAS/WERE ABLE TO / SUCCEEDED IN / MANAGED TO

General abilities

Let's start with general abilities. These are skills or talents a person once had. In the past tense,
English speakers almost always use “could.”

Listen to a few examples.

By the time he was four, Guillermo could read and write.

In high school, she could beat anyone in a running race.

I could mimic bird sounds when I was younger.

Again, we are talking about general skills or talents – not about a specific occasion.

Specific occasions

Now, let’s talk about specific occasions. Here is where the rules change a bit.

When we are talking about a specific situation or when noting a specific achievement, we must
use “was (or) were able to” or “managed to.” Their meanings are very close.

We do not use “could.”

Listen to some examples:

We were able to get a really good price on the car.

We managed to get a really good price on the car.

I was able to persuade her to volunteer at the show.

I managed to persuade her to volunteer at the show.

Now let’s talk more about the meanings. “Was (or) were able to” and “managed to” both suggest
effort. They mean someone succeeded in doing something that was a challenge or took a
special effort. However, the phrase “managed to” puts a little more emphasis on how hard the
challenge was or how much effort it took.

Exception to the rule

Now, let’s take a few minutes to quickly explore an exception to the rules we just discussed.

Earlier, I told you that we use “could” for general abilities. But there are two kinds of verbs where
we also use “could” for specific occasions.

With sense verbs, such as “smell” and “taste,” and thought process verbs, such as
“believe” “decide” and “understand,” we usually use “could” even when talking about
specific occasions.
Listen to two examples of what I mean:

I walked past a market today and could smell the freshly baked bread.

We couldn’t decide what to get for his birthday so we bought a gift card.

Note that the second example uses the negative form -- “couldn’t.”

Using the negatives

So, now would be a good time to talk more about negative forms.

The good news is that we can use “couldn’t,” “wasn’t (or) weren’t able to,” or “didn’t manage to” to
express the same thing – inability on a specific occasion in the past. Listen to how these are used
for the same statement.

He studied for months but couldn’t pass the bar exam =

He studied for months but wasn’t able to pass the bar exam=
He studied for months but didn’t manage to pass the bar exam=
He studied for months but  he didn’t succed in passing the bar exam

All three sentences mean that a person was not capable of doing something on a specific occasion.

YOU CAN USE COULDN’T FOR ALL OF THEM …and that’s it!!!

VERY BRIEFLY:
I could GENERAL ABILITY

 speak 5 languages when I was 5

 run as fast as my older brother
 read bebore going to school

SPECIFIC OCCASION

 I was able to save his life when the boat sank =

 I managed to save his life……=
 I succeeded IN saving his life

 Were you able to pass your driving test? Yes, I was - No, I wasn’t
 Did you manage to pass………………………..? Yes, I did - No, I didn’t
 Did you succed in passing …………………….? Yes, I did - No, I didn’t