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 · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and Source_VOA · checked, community translation · #802153 #969257

• Ils étouffaient et ne pouvaient parler.

  They were choking and could not speak.

  Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators) · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by JumJum and arnxy20 · checked, community translation · #1487871 #10089296

• Saviez-vous que les hommes pouvaient souffrir du cancer du sein ?

  Did you know that men can get breast cancer?

  Tatoeba · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by Scott and Scott · checked, community translation · #1147080 #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 · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and CK · checked, community translation · #307491 #1472128

Grammar

Notes on grammar and translation on Mova: French grammar · English grammar · translating between English and French · translating from French · translating into English.

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.

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