Podía v. Podría
Hello All,
This may be a stupid question, but what's the difference between podía and podría? I know there two different tenses (imperfect indicative and conditional) but it seems like podía is used when I expect podría to be used....though maybe I just don't understand the conditional....
Here's an example of what confuses me:
"Qué podía hacer su padre desde tan lejos?"*
Couldn't you rewrite this as "What would his father be able to do from so far away?", which would require the conditional?
Thanks for your help
*Context of quote: The main character in the novel I got it from is debating about calling his dad for help because his grandmother hasn't shown up, but decides not to. In the English version (which I have in case I get really confused), the sentence is translated to "What could his father do from so far away?"
Note: The example sentence is not mine. It is a quote from a novel written originally in Spanish by Isabel Allende
5 Answers
Que podia - what could he do.
Que podria - what would he be able to do.
I don't think it's a stupid question at all. In fact it draws the attention to the fact that one can't simply transfer the use of a tense ( or a modal auxiliary verb) from one language to the other. Both sentences are possible, but their meaning is slightly different. ' Qué podía hacer' refers to the fact that someone was unable to do something in the past, due to certain circumstances. ' Qué podría hacer' introduces some kind of speculation from the speaker's point of view. The English 'could' on the other hand can have both functions. It can be past and conditional of 'can'.
These examples from my dictionary might help.
¡Quién pudiera vivir sin trabajar! / If only I could survive without working!
¿Podría hablar con don Juan? / Could I speak to don Juan?
Me preguntó si podía ir a la fiesta. / He asked me if he could go to the party.
One can compare the conditional to the imperfect subjunctive, where in iterrogative sentances "podría" is used over "pudiera."
In English we can say:
'What could he do from so far away?"
Where in Spanish we have to say:
"What would he be able to do from so far away." [Qué podría hacer...]
The imperfect indicative cannot be used in a conditinal manner, in fact, your example translates as: "What did he used to be able to do..."
I think you are confusing that "could" with how it is usd in English, with the imperfect subjunctive, where in Spanish we use the conditional since the introduction of a question invokes a condition.
As you stated, these words are of different tenses. While podía is conjugated to the impefect, podría is conjugated to the conditional.
The imperfect refers to what used to happen in the past, while the conditional refers to what would happen.
So, putting poder in context to both of these tenses...
podía - used to (be able to)...
podría - would (be able to)...
I am learning Spanish myself, so sorry for any misunderstandings on my behalf. I also believe that the example you have given is incorrect. You would use podría instead of podía.
I'm not sure how I would word that sentence in Spanish, sorry.
