Translation II. – KEY


1.  Can’t I stay up till / until the end of this programme?

2.  Could students choose what they wanted to study? (= Were they allowed to choose… asking about
permission)

3.  I knew we might have to wait at the frontier / border. (in indirect speech, might is used after
a past reporting verb)

4.  Peter came home alone last night. You shouldn’t have let him (do that). / You shouldn’t have
allowed him to (do that). He might / could have got lost. (we know that he didn’t get lost, so we
can use only might or could + perfect infinitive to say that something was possible in the past,
but we know that it did not     in fact happen)

5.  Perhaps we should / ought to have taken the other way/road. It may / might / could have been
quicker / faster. (here we don’t know whether the other road is/was quicker or not – perhaps yes,
perhaps no…      to say that it is possible that sth happened in the past, but we don’t know what
the result is/was, we can use may / might / could + perfect infinitive)

6.  If you had left it there / Had you left it there, someone / somebody might / could have stolen
it.

7.  The man can’t  be driving the car himself. He can’t drive.

8.  He may / might not be driving the car himself.

9.  Ann can’t / couldn’t have seen Tom yesterday. She was on business in Prague.

10. You / One can ski on the hills.

11. When I was young I could (= was able to) climb any tree in the forest.

12. Could you please send me an application form?

13. He said he had lost his passport and therefore / that is why he hadn’t been able to / wasn’t
able to / couldn’t leave for Spain. (past inability, whether or not reference is made to an actual
occasion, can be expressed by couldn’t as well as by the past tense of not be able to or be unable
to)

14. I could have lent you the money. Why didn’t you ask me?

15. He was able to send us a message. (He managed to send …/ He succeeded in sending us…)

– for past ability which is realised in some actual achievement or success (a particular situation,
nothing general), could cannot be used and has to be replaced by the past (or perfect) tense of be
able to