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 a high-frequency 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. Press Enter to check each answer.
yo: puedo, tú: puedes, él: puede, nosotros: podemos, vosotros: podéis, ellos: pueden
Poder is irregular.
Use poder in multiple tenses to show range — present, preterite and future at minimum. This is a key criterion for higher GCSE marks.
Verbs that are easy to confuse with poder or that behave like it.
This reference is written for UK GCSE and A-Level Spanish learners and their teachers. It is designed for exam revision: every form is checked against standard conjugation rules, and the examples reflect the registers and topics that come up in the AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas specifications. Poder is a high-frequency verb and appears often in exam papers. For active recall, use the free practice tool rather than only reading the tables.