Put « pouvoir » into the past — the big A2 step.
At A2 you move « pouvoir » into the past — and French gives you two past tenses where English often uses one. This trips up every learner, so let’s be very concrete: the passé composé is for what happened (one completed event: « hier, j’ai… »), the imparfait is for how things were (background, habit, description: « quand j’étais petit, je …ais »).
Think of a film: the imparfait is the scenery and the mood; the passé composé is what the actors do. Every French story you ever tell will weave these two together — the step-by-step method below shows you how each one is built for this verb, then you practise both.
💡 Focus at this level: Past — could / was able to
Passé composé = avoir + the participle pu: « j’ai pu », « nous avons pu ». One auxiliary, one participle — that’s the whole tense.
Imparfait recipe: take nous pouvons, drop -ons → stem pouv-, add the endings.
⚠️ Classic mistake: passé composé = one completed event (hier, j’ai…) ; imparfait = background, habit, description (avant, je …ais). Movie trick: imparfait sets the scene, passé composé is the action.
🧠 Memory hook: one story a day: tell yesterday in 3 sentences — 2 passé composé + 1 imparfait, using « pouvoir » at least once.
Tap 🔊 to hear each form in a native voice, then say it aloud — most French verb endings are silent, so « pouvoir » forms often sound alike.
j’___ (passé composé)
ai pu
tu ___ (passé composé)
as pu
nous ___ (passé composé)
avons pu
je ___ (imparfait)
pouvais
tu ___ (imparfait)
pouvais
nous ___ (imparfait)
pouvions
🎮 Conjugation quiz match the person to the form
🧩 Sentence builder put the words in the right order