.alvaaro

[blissful moss]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[dawn dome]

decide what the subject of the sentence is (je, tu, le chat, etc) then look up the relevant conjugation of pouvoir on wordreference.com or Google. You're looking for passé composé or imparfait depending on whether you're referencing a past moment of change or an unchanging description.

plus-que-parfait is also an option if you're describing a past moment that's further in the past relative to another moment.

once you have your conjugated form, you order your sentence:

subject you chose + conjugated form of pouvoir + rentrer plus tard

if you want to leave it subject-less like it is now, you can use the infinitive form of the auxiliary verb (avoir/être) in the passé composé

[open plover]

would ''je pouvais rentrer plus tard'' be correct

[dawn dome]

the sentence is grammatically correct, yes! do you have more context so I can help verify if imparfait is the right tense to use here?

I have a hunch that what you're thinking of is better suited to the passé composé, but I can't know for sure without more context

Putting it in the imparfait makes me think that you might not have actually gone back later. The imparfait describes unchanging "scene elements". So "je pouvais rentrer plus tard" sounds like a statement of ability but not an indicator that you actually did anything: "i was able to go back later (but i may or may not have actually)"

In the passé composé, it would imply that you actually did something ie: "i was (successfully) able to go back later"

[open plover]

it was just on a conversion table for a level french

i wasnt even sure about the english past tense for it because it sounds like a conditional one 😭

'' i could go back later''

[hybrid coyote]

The English tense here isn't immediately obvious because "could"/"can" are modal verbs and function a bit differently

To help figure out what to use in French, you can replace "can"/"could" with "be able to" which makes it clearer which tense is being used.

[open plover]

this was very helpful, thank you

[dawn dome]

In this case, the table explicitly requests passé composé both in the directions and in the column header.