USE OF CAN & CAN’T

By: Pandenglish(Karen Cruz, Emmanuel Garcia, Laura Salazar, Saiury Zapata, Vanessa Velez)

CAN & CAN’T

The defective verb "Can" is the Spanish for "power" this verb is widely used in English to express the following:

Possibility of certain events.

1. The ability or capacity of people / things.

2. To request / grant permission.

3. To order / offer things.

CAN

Can is an auxiliary verb, a modal auxiliary verb. We use can to:

• Talk about possibility and ability

• Make requests

• Ask for or give permission

STRUCTURE OF CAN

The basic structure for can is:Subject + auxiliary verb can + main verb

Notice that:• Can is invariable. There is only one from:

Can• The main verb is always the bare infinitive.

EXAMPLES

• I can draw very well • You can speak english

EXAMPLES

He can drive a car She can make dinner

CAN’T, CANNOT

This type of negative sentences nature preserves the properties of action verb that affirmative sentences, that is, the verb does not change depending on the person from whom you talk to.

STRUCTURE OF CAN’T

Pronoun / name + can’t + action verb + complement

• To form the negative we add "not" after can to form one word: cannot.

• We can also contract the negative to form can't. (can't = cannot)

• Note: It is very common in English (speaking and writing) using the contraction "Can not" instead of "Can not".

EXAMPLESShe can't speak Chinese.

I can't swim

Examples

They can’t sing the song He can’t run for long

EXAMPLE WITH CAN & CAN’T

• He can sing…

…but she can’t dance

THE END…