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Tag Archives: can

Using the word ‘may’ in May Posted by on May 3, 2016

Since we have just entered the month of May I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about this month’s homophone the other word ‘may’. The month of May is a proper noun, but the ‘may’ I want to talk about today is a modal verb. The auxiliary modal verb ‘may’ is (generally) used for…

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Can/could vs. to be able to Posted by on Oct 30, 2013

The use of ‘can/could’ and ‘to be able to’ in order to express ability, can at times cause confusion. So, today we are going to look at these different verb constructions and how they are used the same, and differently, to talk about ability. Here we go. Can and to be able to are usually used…

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May, Might and Can Posted by on Jul 4, 2012

May and might – who knew that two words could create so much confusion when it comes to learning the English language. Yet, these two words do just that. So what is the difference between may and might? Well, not too much actually. may = suggests that it is possible that the action will occur…

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