Two questions about "can"


If 食べれる means "can eat", 食べれます means the same but polite, and 食べれません means
"can not eat" but in its polite form, how do I say "can not eat" in the
nonpolite form?

Another little question: how can I say "can be". For example, "I can be that
person".




First of all, it should be 食べられる rather than 食べれる, although the latter form is
used. See [this
link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/36120/whats-is-the-
difference-between-these-two-forms).

Once you have conjugated a verb into the potential form it behaves just like
any other iru-eru/group 1 (whatever you want to call it) verb.

As you probably already know, to make a group 1 verb negative you just remove
る and replace it with ない. So we get 食べられない.

Furthermore, ない just behaves like an i-adjective so you can get the past tense
exactly as you would expect: 食べられなかった. Conjugation in Japanese is really
logical :-)

I'm not a native speaker, but I can't think of any way to turn 'to be' into
potential form. My guess is that this isn't a natural thing to do. If had to
say "I can be that person" I think would use なる (become) and say: あの人になれます。




First of all, it should be 食べられる rather than 食べれる, although the latter form is
used. See [this
link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/36120/whats-is-the-
difference-between-these-two-forms).

Once you have conjugated a verb into the potential form it behaves just like
any other iru-eru/group 1 (whatever you want to call it) verb.

As you probably already know, to make a group 1 verb negative you just remove
る and replace it with ない. So we get 食べられない.

Furthermore, ない just behaves like an i-adjective so you can get the past tense
exactly as you would expect: 食べられなかった. Conjugation in Japanese is really
logical :-)

I'm not a native speaker, but I can't think of any way to turn 'to be' into
potential form. My guess is that this isn't a natural thing to do. If had to
say "I can be that person" I think would use なる (become) and say: あの人になれます。

