Newbie Japanese learner here. I’ve seen several patterns that seem to equate to “can” in English and I’m a bit unclear about when they should be used. In some places I’ve seen verbs conjugated with the letter -e and in other places I’ve seen the pattern verbことができる. E.g “Can you swim?” being either “泳げるか？” or “泳ぐことができるか？”. Which pattern should be used in which situation and are there any other ways of expressing ability to do something?
Thanks!
1 comment
potential and kotogadekiru are the two ways to do it
they mean the same thing, one is just wordier
1. i can eat 10 cakes
2. i am able to eat 10 cakes
they mean the same thing but with more or less words
there’s often just many synonyms for things, just like in english, and people mix them around because it gets boring to use the same construct or the same word over and over
though in the negative form, the kotogadekinai is more likely to stress “physically incapable of”
https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2689/%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%8C%E3%81%A7%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8B-versus-v%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B-form
and sometimes kotogadekiru is the only way to say things because you can’t combine the potential conjugation with passive or causative directly
https://context.reverso.net/%E7%BF%BB%E8%A8%B3/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E-%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E/%E3%81%95%E3%81%9B%E3%82%8B%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%8C%E3%81%A7%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8B
there are other ways to express potentiality but they’re far rarer and i would’t worry about them. search for “potential” here: https://imabi.org/table-of-contents-%e7%9b%ae%e6%ac%a1/