can / can’t (ability)

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Can

I can sing.
She can play the piano.

He can dance.
They can sing.

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Can’t
I can’t stay awake.

She can’t swim.

He can’t ride a bike. They can’t dance.

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Can (questions)
Yes, I can.
Can you sing?

Yes, she can.

Can she play the piano?

Can they dance? No, they can’t.

Can he ride a bike? No, he can’t.

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can / can’t in action
Mia: Can you swim?
Sam: Yes, I can. Can you swim?
Mia: No, I can’t. But I can ride a bike.
Sam: Oh, I can ride a bike, too. Hey, do you want to go
to the beach?
Mia: Yes. It’s not far away. Can you surf?
Sam: No, I can’t. Can you teach me?
Mia: My brother can teach you. Let’s go and see him. We
can go to the beach together.
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GET IT RIGHT!

I can to swim.

He can dances.

I don’t
can’t can drive.

Do
Canyou
youcan dance?

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Can you remember the rules?
Positive and negative
• We use can to talk about ability.
• The negative form is cannot. The contracted form is can’t.
• We don’t use do or does with negative forms.

Positive Negative
I/You I/You
He/She/It can jump. He/She/It can’t (cannot) jump.
We /They We /They

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Can you remember the rules?
Questions and short answers
• To make questions we use Can + subject + the base form of the verb.
• We don’t use do/does with can in questions.

Questions Short answers

I/You Yes, I/you/he/she/it/we/they can.
Can He/She/It jump? No, I/you/he/she/it/we/they can’t.
We /They

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 Find a sport to do
cycling
play / in a team ice-skating
run / fast
dancing
swim
basketball
catch / a ball ride / a bike volleyball
surfing
throw / a ball move to music snowboarding
baseball
keep / balance hit / a ball tennis
swimming
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Do you know your friends?
Write your classmate’s names. Write 2 of your own ideas.

1 ________ do tae kwon do. 5 ________ ice-skate.

2 ________ play the piano. 6 ________ skateboard.
3 ________ speak French. 7 ________ _____________.
4 ________ snowboard. 8 ________ _____________.

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Acknowledgements
The authors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of
copyright material and are grateful for the permissions granted. While
every effort has been made, it has not always been possible to identify
the sources of all the material used, or to trace all copyright holders. If
any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include
the appropriate acknowledgements on reprinting and in the next
update to the digital edition, as applicable.
The publishers are grateful to the following illustrators:
Christos Skaltsas (hyphen) Slide 2, 3, 4 & 5
Written by Emma Szlachta.
© Cambridge University Press 2016