The most important verbs

A French verb appears in a word list in its base form and in a sentence almost never, which is why every verb here comes with a sentence showing the form actually used. Two of them, savoir and pouvoir, divide between them a job English gives to one word. Savoir is to know something, and by extension to know how to do it because you learnt it: je sais nager is « I can swim », and what it really says is that swimming is something you know. Pouvoir is to be able or allowed in this moment: je peux nager aujourd'hui says the water is warm enough and nobody is stopping you. English puts « can » in both places and loses the difference, which is why je ne peux pas nager and je ne sais pas nager both come out as « I can't swim » and mean two different things.