könnte vs. könnt

[jvmassey1]

In the Newbie series, Lesson 11, in the grammar practice, there is this question: How do you translate 'He could help.' I translated it to be 'Er könnt helfen' but it was marked as wrong and translated 'Er könnte helfen.' I don't understand why since könnte translates to be 'I could help.' Könnten Sie mir bitte helfen?

[nagarjuna]

In this case, the first person singular form (ich) and the third person singular (er/sie/es) are the same. Here's the full conjugation.

ich könnte
du könntest
er könnte
wir könnten
ihr könntet
sie könnten

The best thing to do is get a short grammar book so you can look these things up (or one of the McGraw-Hill verb drill books - look on Amazon). German verb forms are perplexing at first, but the fog does seem to clear (even if it does so slowly)