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# pouvaient — French to English

How French *pouvaient* is translated into English in open, checked parallel texts: 1 translation with example sentences.

The Elamur Dictionary has no French section yet; the English translations below link to their meanings where it has them.

Sentence pairs counted, by form: pouvaient (36 724). By style: everyday 59 · literary 10 · biblical 14 · parliamentary 1 061 · legal and administrative 2 893 · UN documents 32 687.

## could

Used about 21 503 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 44 · literary ≈ 3 · biblical ≈ 6 · parliamentary ≈ 575 · legal and administrative ≈ 1 808 · UN documents ≈ 19 067).

- Ils ne **pouvaient** qu'écouter.
  They **could** only listen.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and Source\_VOA · checked, community translation · [\#802153](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/802153) [\#969257](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/969257))

- Ils étouffaient et ne **pouvaient** parler.
  They were choking and **could** not speak.
  ([Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators)](https://www.gutenberg.org/) · Project Gutenberg, public domain · checked, professional translation · hugo les miserables, row 28979)

- Ils se rendirent à la maison, et la foule s’assembla de nouveau, en sorte qu’ils ne **pouvaient** pas même prendre leur repas.
  The multitude came together again, so that they **could** not so much as eat bread.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · MAR 3:20)

- D'autres députés **pouvaient** demander la constatation du quorum et, puis, ne pas voter.
  Other Members **could** have requested the quorum and then not voted.
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 43102)

- Toutefois, divers problèmes empêchant le versement de l’aide **pouvaient** encore se présenter.
  However, different problems preventing the payment of the aid **could** still occur.
  ([DGT-TM v2021](https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/language-technology-resources/dgt-translation-memory_en) · Source: European Commission, DGT-TM (Steinberger et al. 2012), re-used under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU; the Commission keeps ownership of the data · checked, professional translation · segment 1695050)

## More sentences

Sentence pairs with the word where no single translation was found: it may be translated by a phrase, or left out.

- Elles ne **pouvaient** pas arrêter de rire.
  They couldn't stop laughing.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by JumJum and arnxy20 · checked, community translation · [\#1487871](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1487871) [\#10089296](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/10089296))

- Saviez-vous que les hommes **pouvaient** souffrir du cancer du sein ?
  Did you know that men can get breast cancer?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by Scott and Scott · checked, community translation · [\#1147080](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1147080) [\#1147101](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1147101))

- Elles étaient si intimidées qu'elles ne **pouvaient** bouger d'un pouce.
  They were so frightened that they couldn't move an inch.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and CK · checked, community translation · [\#307491](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/307491) [\#1472128](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1472128))

## Grammar

Notes on grammar and translation on Mova: [French grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/) · [English grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/) · [translating between English and French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/pairs/en-fr/) · [translating from French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/from-fr/) · [translating into English](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/into-en/).

## About these examples

Translations are found by how often the two words stand in the same sentence pairs, and the highlighted words are matched automatically: both are approximate. Counts are estimated from a sample of each source. Every example names its source and licence. [Submit a better translation or example](https://md.translate.elamur.ai/free/en/submit/?pair=fr-en&word=pouvaient).


Every example is quoted under its source's licence and credited with it; the rest of the site is open under the Elamur Cosmic License.