Surely one of the most powerful verbs. Nothing happens without it. Why then you ask, does it have to be so tricky? It doesn't have to be. Let's de-construct the ways that PODER in Portuguese is actually used. **PODER as a noun means: power. We're talking just about the verb in this post. I've written about poder before, in a post about the different ways of expressing the ability to do something.
PODER in the Present tense
Standard use in the simple present tense looks like this.
Você pode ir? ➜ Can you go?
Sim, posso ir. ➜ Yes, I can go.
But in everyday conversation, people often throw in an extra IR (eu vou) like this...
Sim, eu vou poder ir. ➜ Yes, I can go.
Brazilians like to pronounce poder ir as a single word: Sim, eu vou poderir. Pronounced: po-dare-eee.
This is confusing.
It's like saying "I'm not going to be able to go." The meaning is the same, but it's a different approach. A Brazilian learning English would say -why don't you just say "I can't go" -?! 😉 I'm pointing this out because this is an intermediate level post and you are going to start noticing lots of variations in standard sentence structure, and it's going to cause you confusion.
Now let's try saying, "Eu não vou poder" -- This time without the final verb so it just means, "I'm not going to be able to." This is really useful to use in lots of situations and is very easy to remember.
Você vai jogar tênis amanhã? ➜ Não vou poder, não.
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PODER in the (simple) past
*simple past = preterit indicative
The past tense, the conjugation is (surprise!) irregular. Eu pude. ➜ I was able. Você pôde. ➜ You were able. Ele, ela pôde. ➜ He/ She was able. Nós pudemos. ➜ We were able. Eles, elas puderam. ➜ They/ You all were able.
Eu ia para a festa mas não pude. ➜ I was going to go to the party but I couldn't.
Ontem ela não pôde sair. ➜ Yesterday she couldn't go out.
✻ Now, I hear you saying to yourself "Oh, you mean could." But the reason I'm saying were able here is because I want to make it clear this is the past tense. In English we use could to express the past as well as the future. Not in Portuguese! It's important top keep this straight. I'm always going to translate PODER in the simple past as was able, and PODER in the future sense as could. This kind of hack will keep you driving straight and fast.
PODER in the conditional tense
In the Conditional tense PODER means: could. Eu poderia. ➜ I could. Você poderia. ➜ You could. Ele, ela poderia. ➜ He/ She could. Nós poderíamos. ➜ We could. Eles, elas poderiam. ➜ They/ You all could. ✻ Can you see that this form is mainly used to talk about the future ~ what's possible in the future?! Claro você pode!
O hotel é bom mas, poderia ficar melhor. ➜ The hotel is good but it could be better.
Tudo poderia ser diferente. ➜ Everything could be different.
If you wanted to place these sentences in the past but keep the sense that these actions were conditional (not actually done), you could add TER to them to express could have. But then you also need to tack-on a past participle to express things like to have been (ter+sido), to have said (ter+falado), to have done (ter+feito); to have gone (ter+ido). This is advance Poruguese 😵😵😵 and is covered in detail in my post about in a post that is on my to-so list 😅.
Tudo poderia ter sido diferente. ➜ Everything could have been different.
Poderíamos ter passados no bar para um drink. ➜ We could have dropped-by the bar for a drink.
✻ Mais uma vez... PODER in the present:
Ela pode vir com a gente. ➜ She can come with us.
PODER in the (simple) past:
Ela não pôde vir com a gente. ➜ She wasn’t able to come with us.
PODER in the conditional:
Ele poderia vir coma a gente. ➜ She could come with us.
✻ The difference in pronunciation between pode and pôde is subtle and tricky! It's like pawjee vs. ohjee 😎
Eu ia para a festa mas não pude. ➜ I was going to go to the party but I couldn't.
Ontem ela não pôde sair. ➜ Yesterday she couldn't go out.
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