Poder is one of the most important irregular verbs in Spanish — it appears in virtually every GCSE and A-Level task.
Practice poder free →Poder means 'to be able to' or 'can', and it is one of the most useful verbs for sounding natural, because it lets you make requests, ask permission and express possibility. ¿Puedes ayudarme? (can you help me?) is everyday gold. It is a stem-changing verb — the o becomes ue in the present (puedo, puedes, puede) — and its preterite is irregular (pude, pudo). Poder is almost always followed by an infinitive, which makes it structurally simple to use once you have the forms. For exams, the conditional podría ('could' / 'would be able to') is especially valuable for polite requests and hypothetical sentences that lift your mark.
Quick facts
Poder (to be able to / can) is an irregular -er verb.
Real sentences across different tenses — the kind of thing you'd actually say or write.
To be able to do something: puedo nadar (I can swim), no puede venir (he can't come).
Asking or granting permission: ¿puedo entrar? (may I come in?), ¿puedes ayudarme? (can you help me?).
Expressing that something may happen: puede llover (it may rain), puede que sí (maybe).
Podría softens a request or states a hypothetical: ¿podrías repetir? (could you repeat?), podríamos ir (we could go).
Fixed expressions worth knowing — they come up in listening, reading and writing tasks.
Idiomatic expressions
In the preterite, pude = managed to (succeeded); no pude = couldn't / failed to. The stem changes throughout: pude, pudiste, pudo, pudimos, pudisteis, pudieron. Don't use *podí.
Stem-changing (o→ue) in all forms except nosotros and vosotros.
Completely irregular stem: pud-. Use the standard preterite -er endings on this stem.
Irregular future stem: podr-. Apply the regular future endings to podr-.
Uses the same irregular stem as the future: podr-.
The gerund of poder is irregular: pudiendo (o→u). Estoy pudiendo is rarely used — pudiendo appears in constructions like no pudiendo hacerlo…
Type conjugations from memory and get instant feedback. That's how you actually build the automatic recall the exam needs — not from reading tables.
Practice poder now →Three questions, no account needed. Type the form, then press Enter or tap Check.
yo: puedo, tú: puedes, él: puede, nosotros: podemos, vosotros: podéis, ellos: pueden
Poder is irregular. The tenses with irregular forms are: Presente, Pretérito Indefinido, Futuro, Condicional, Presente Progresivo.
The past participle is podido (he podido) and the gerund is pudiendo (estoy pudiendo).
Verbs that are easy to confuse with poder or that behave like it.
Poder is on the AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas GCSE Spanish vocabulary lists. Compare the exam boards.
Written by Daniel Holmes for GCSE & A-Level Spanish students.