No siempre se pueden ganar

Question

You can't always win.

I wonder why not "no siempre se puede ganar"?

Gracias.

Answer 1

Actually "no siempre se puede ganar" is perfect. And LuzB is right too "no puedes ganarlas todas".

Answer 2

Jeezzle:

Well a kid opened a candy box and did not like the candy, so the man said "No siempre se pueden ganar", but I guess they are both right? He definitely said "pueden" though in that situation.

It all depends of what the man was talking about.

Maybe was telling the kid that the candies cannot be won (that easily)

or

That this type of situations cannot always be won...

or

Who knows what the guy was thinking when he said that...

Answer 3

I have no idea about grammar rules and such, but whatever is being talked about (whatever it is you can/cannot win determines whether you use puede/pueden.

No se puede hablar, no se puede nadar, no se puede gritar ..... it's a single action that's being denied to an unknown number of people. But when the action/object being talked about is plural, pueden seems to always be used, at least it is very common. Some examples

No siempre se puede ganar en la vida (one life)
No siempre se puede ganar cinco a cero (one game)
No siempre se pueden ganar todos los partidos (multiple games)
No siempre se pueden ganar partidos jugando bien (single action)

Sorry if this sounds idiotic, but it's the only way I know to explain it.

Answer 4

Perhaps you could think of it as the equivalent of "You can't win them all."

Answer 5

Given the above scenario, perhaps the man was referring to the candies as "they", so he said "They cannot always win." Just a guess.

Answer 6

Well a kid opened a candy box and did not like the candy, so the man said "No siempre se pueden ganar", but I guess they are both right? He definitely said "pueden" though in that situation.

Yes, both are right. - 00a4c226, Oct 24, 2011