Pude, pudía and pudiera

Question

Hi, please could someone advise which form of 'poder' I can use if I want to say this sentence in Spanish? ->> 'I could not believe that I could speak Spanish to them'

I used a translator website and it gave me this result: Yo no pudía creer que pudiera hablar español con ellos.

My question: Why was it 'pudía' but not 'pude'? And why was it 'pudiera' for the second part - is this supposed to be a subjuntive sentence?

Muchas gracias!

"pudía" is not a correct form. It's "podía." As to the second part, many Spanish speakers would agree as to the imperfect subjunctive which you have. There are other ways of saying it though. - Daniela2041, Aug 3, 2017

Welcome to SpanishDict, Linh. - rac1, Aug 3, 2017

Answer 1

Welcome to the forum, Linh

I am sorry you didn't get an answer to your question.

There are two possibilities : pude or podía Both are past tenses but the second option would be more adequate in this case.

no podía creer que podía hablar español con ellos

This is what our translator would have given you.

This is the google translator:

No podía creer que pudiera hablarles español"

One option , however, would be :

No podía creer que pudiera/fuera capaz de hablarles en español.

I guess what you wanted to say is that you were surprised that your Spanish was good enough or really good to be able to communicate in the language.

As you can see, translators are quite good, but a direct answer is better Feel free to post anything you need on this forum.