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1 ♦ could
♦ could /kʊd, kəd/v. modalecould, come tutti i verbi modali, ha caratteristiche particolari:● ha significato di passato o di condizionale;● non ha forme flesse (-s alla 3a pers. sing. pres., - ing, -ed), non è mai usato con ausiliari; in sostituzione delle forme mancanti si usano, secondo il significato, quelle di to be able o di to be possible;● forma le domande mediante la semplice posposizione del soggetto;● l'infinito che segue non ha la particella to;● viene usato nelle question tags1 ( esprime capacità o abilità) – At 12 he still could not read properly, a dodici anni non sapeva ancora (o non era ancora in grado di) leggere bene; He could be very unpleasant when he wanted, sapeva (o poteva) essere molto sgradevole quando voleva; I could not resist intervening, non seppi resistere all'impulso di intervenire; The doctors could not save him, i medici non hanno potuto (o non sono riusciti a) salvarlo; I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier, mi dispiace di non esser potuta venire prima; How could you do such a thing?, come hai potuto fare una cosa simile?; We decided we could afford a bigger house, decidemmo che potevamo permetterci una casa più grande; We could hear firing in the distance, sentivamo spari in lontananza; I could feel my heart thumping, mi sentivo martellare il cuore; I turned my back to him so that he couldn't see me smiling, mi girai perché non mi vedesse sorridere2 ( nel discorso indiretto) – She said she could come after lunch, (rif. al futuro) ha detto che può (o potrà) venire dopo pranzo; (rif. al passato) disse che avrebbe potuto (o poteva) venire dopo pranzo3 ( esprime capacità ipotetica) – I could recognize that man if I saw him again, saprei riconoscere quell'uomo, se lo rivedessi; I'm so furious I could scream!, sono così furioso che mi metterei a urlare!4 ( esprime possibilità o probabilità rif. al futuro o, seguito da inf. pass., al passato) – I could be wrong, but…, potrei sbagliarmi, ma…; This could well turn out to be an advantage, questo potrebbe anche rivelarsi un vantaggio; Repairs could take two months, le riparazioni potrebbero richiedere due mesi; These mushrooms could be poisonous, questi funghi potrebbero essere velenosi; He said the damage could have been caused by a subsidence, ha detto che il danno potrebbe essere stato causato da un cedimento del terreno; The weather couldn't have been lovelier, il tempo non avrebbe potuto (o non poteva) essere migliore; He couldn't possibily have said that, non può assolutamente aver detto questo; è impossibile che abbia detto questo; She couldn't have been more than twenty, non poteva avere più di vent'anni5 ( esprime suggerimento o richiesta) – I could try again tomorrow, potrei riprovare domani; Could you go there yourself?, potresti andarci tu?; Could I have a word with you?, potrei parlarti un momento?; Couldn't we wait a bit longer?, non potremmo aspettare ancora un po?; If I could just ask a brief question…, vorrei solo fare una rapida domanda se posso6 ( seguito da inf. pass., esprime rammarico o rimprovero per qc. di non avvenuto) – Things could have been different, le cose sarebbero potute andare altrimenti; You could have hurt yourself, avresti potuto farti male; She could have told me!, avrebbe potuto dirmelo!; I could have been here by ten, if I hadn't had a puncture, sarei potuta arrivare per le dieci se non avessi forato; You couldn't have been more cruel, non saresti potuto essere più crudele7 ( in frase ipotetica, dopo if) – I would help you, if I could, ti aiuterei, se potessi; If only Dad could see me now!, se Papà mi potesse vedere ora!● could but ► but (1), B, def. 3 □ could not help ► to help □ as soon as I could, non appena potei (o mi fu possibile); più presto che potei □ as tight as could be, strettissimo □ as easy as could be wished, facile come di più non si potrebbe (o, in contesto pass., non si sarebbe potuto) desiderare.NOTA D'USO: - could have- -
2 could
could [kʊd]ⓘ GRAM La forme négative est couldn't. Dans les contextes où il est nécessaire d'utiliser une forme plus soignée, on écrit could not.∎ I'd come if I could je viendrais si je (le) pouvais;∎ she could no longer walk elle ne pouvait plus marcher;∎ they couldn't very well refuse il leur aurait été difficile de refuser;∎ five years ago I could run a mile in four minutes but I couldn't anymore il y a cinq ans, je courais un mile en quatre minutes mais je ne pourrais plus maintenant;∎ she could have had the job if she'd wanted it elle aurait pu obtenir cet emploi si elle l'avait voulu∎ he could see her talking to her boss il la voyait qui parlait avec son patron;∎ I could see his point of view je comprenais son point de vue∎ she could read and write elle savait lire et écrire;∎ she could speak three languages elle parlait trois langues∎ could I borrow your sweater? est-ce que je pourrais t'emprunter ton pull?;∎ could I join you? est-ce que je pourrais me joindre à vous?;∎ couldn't I come too? est-ce que je ne pourrais pas venir moi aussi?;∎ could you help me please? pourriez-vous ou est-ce que vous pourriez m'aider, s'il vous plaît?;∎ could you bring the bill, please? pourriez-vous apporter l'addition, s'il vous plaît?∎ they could give up at any time ils pourraient abandonner n'importe quand;∎ could he be lying? se pourrait-il qu'il mente?;∎ the stock market could crash tomorrow le marché pourrait s'effondrer demain;∎ you could well be right tu pourrais bien avoir raison;∎ don't touch it, it could be dangerous n'y touchez pas, ça pourrait être dangereux;∎ they could have changed their plans ils ont peut-être changé leurs plans∎ you could have told me the truth tu aurais pu me dire la vérité;∎ they could easily have got here earlier ils auraient facilement pu arriver ici plus tôt;∎ you could have warned me! tu aurais pu me prévenir!;∎ what could I have done with the keys? qu'est-ce que j'ai bien pu faire des clés?;∎ I could kill him! je pourrais le tuer!;∎ he could have jumped for joy il en aurait presque sauté de joie;∎ I'm as happy as could be je suis on ne peut plus heureux;∎ she was as kind as could be elle était on ne peut plus gentille∎ I couldn't just leave him there, could I? je ne pouvais vraiment pas le laisser là;∎ I couldn't possibly do it before tomorrow je ne pourrai vraiment pas le faire avant demain∎ you could always complain to the director tu pourrais toujours te plaindre au directeur;∎ couldn't you just apologize? tu ne pourrais pas simplement présenter tes excuses?;∎ couldn't we at least talk about it? est-ce que nous ne pourrions pas au moins en discuter?∎ if I could just intervene here est-ce que je peux me permettre d'intervenir ici?;∎ you could argue it's a waste of resources tu pourrais argumenter que c'est un gaspillage de ressources∎ the house couldn't have been THAT expensive la maison n'a pas dû coûter si cher que ça;∎ how could she have done such a thing? comment a-t-elle pu faire une chose pareille?;∎ how could you say that? comment avez-vous pu dire ça ou une chose pareille?;∎ who on earth could that be? qui diable cela peut-il bien être?∎ he left and you couldn't blame him il est parti et on ne peut pas lui en vouloir -
3 could
could [kʊd]a. (past)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could refers to ability in the past, it is translated by the perfect of pouvoir, or by the imperfect if the time is continuous.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I couldn't phone because I had no change je n'ai pas pu téléphoner parce que je n'avais pas de monnaie━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When used with a verb of perception, could is not usually translated.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► could have is usually translated by the conditional of avoir + pu.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. (present)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could refers to the present, the present tense is generally used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could indicates future possibility, it is translated by the conditional.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you could at least apologize! tu pourrais au moins t'excuser !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• could you pass me the salt, please? pourriez-vous me passer le sel, s'il vous plaît ?• could I have a word with you? est-ce que je pourrais vous parler un instant (s'il vous plaît) ?* * *[kʊd]can I -
4 could
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5 could
2 mocht(en) ⇒ zou(den) mogen, zou(den) kunnen♦voorbeelden:I could go if you like • ik zou kunnen gaan als je wiltyou could have warned us • je had ons toch kunnen verwittigenI could weep with exhaustion • ik zou kunnen huilen van vermoeidheid -
6 could've
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7 could do with something
necesitar algo -
8 could care less
could not care less/could care less наплевать; начхать; абсолютно все равноPick whatever dessert you want; I couldn't care less.
I could care less about the editor's opinion.
Англо-русский словарь идиом и фразовых глаголов > could care less
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9 could not care less
could not care less/could care less наплевать; начхать; абсолютно все равноPick whatever dessert you want; I couldn't care less.
I could care less about the editor's opinion.
Англо-русский словарь идиом и фразовых глаголов > could not care less
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10 could've
could've[´kudəv] = could have. -
11 could do with someone or something
хотеть, нуждаться в чем-либоThis house could do with some cleaning up.English-Russian small dictionary of idioms > could do with someone or something
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12 could
could см. также ccould мочь см. также can -
13 could've
could've = could have. -
14 could've
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15 could past
could past от can -
16 could you lock up the office when you leave?
could you lock up the office when you leave?sluit je het kantoor af wanneer je weg gaat?English-Dutch dictionary > could you lock up the office when you leave?
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17 could you oblige me by opening the door?
could you oblige me by opening the door?wilt u zo vriendelijk zijn de deur voor mij te openen?English-Dutch dictionary > could you oblige me by opening the door?
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18 could you please enlighten me about/on this?
could you please enlighten me about/on this?zou u mij hier wat meer over kunnen vertellen?English-Dutch dictionary > could you please enlighten me about/on this?
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19 could you speak up please
could you speak up pleasewat harder a.u.b. -
20 Could I be excused?
• Could [may] I be excused? амер. Извините, мне надо выйти! Позвольте выйти! ( из-за стола)Difficulties of the English language (lexical reference) English-Russian dictionary > Could I be excused?
См. также в других словарях:
could — [ weak kəd, strong kud ] modal verb *** Could is usually followed by an infinitive without to : I m glad you could come. Sometimes it is used without a following infinitive: I came as quickly as I could. Could does not change its form, so the… … Usage of the words and phrases in modern English
Could've Been You — Cher s UK 7 single cover … Wikipedia
could — W1S1 [kəd strong kud] modal v negative short form couldn t ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 1¦(past ability)¦ 2¦(possibility)¦ 3¦(emphasizing your feelings)¦ 4¦(requesting)¦ 5¦(suggesting)¦ 6¦(annoyance)¦ 7 couldn t be better/worse/more pleased etc 8 I couldn t … Dictionary of contemporary English
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Could You Be Loved — Single by Bob Marley the Wailers from the album Uprising B side One Drop … Wikipedia
Could I Have This Kiss Forever — «Could I Have This Kiss Forever» Сингл Энрике Иглесиаса при участии Уитни Хьюстон из альбома Enrique Сторона «Б» … Википедия
Could've Been — Single by Tiffany from the album Tiffany B … Wikipedia
could — [kood] v.aux. [altered (infl. by WOULD, SHOULD) < ME coud < OE cuthe (akin to Goth kuntha, OHG konda, ON kunna), pt. of cunnan, to be able: see CAN1] 1. pt. of CAN1 [he gave what he could give] 2 … English World dictionary
Could You Be the One? — Single by Hüsker Dü from the album Warehouse: Songs and Stories Released January 1987 Recorded Nicolett Studios, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August November 1986 … Wikipedia
Could We Survive — EP by Joseph Arthur Released March 18, 2008 … Wikipedia