Le bon vielle temps

[Crack1]

Le bon vieille temps, je ne pourrais pas parler français.
[In the good old days, I couldn't speak French.]

Today I can speak some French. Some 15 years ago I couldn't speak any French.]

Il n'est pas bien vieux.
[ He is not old OR He is still young.]

Elle n'est pas bien vieille.
[ She is not old OR She is still young.]
How about my French sentences? They are not perfect.

[Neil Coffey]

Remember that the masculine form is vieux and temps is masculine, so the expression is le bon vieux temps. To say "in the...", use au bon vieux temps, but otherwise say e.g. C'était le bon vieux temps.

The form pourrais is a conditional form-- i.e. it means "could" in the sense of "would be able to", not "used to be able to". For that you would use the imperfect form: pouvais. However, it's more idiomatic in this case to say je ne savais pas parler français (or simply: je ne parlais pas...). In general, savoir tends to be used more to mean "can" in the sense of "know how to"; pouvoir tends to mean either "to be allowed to" or "to be physically able to" (though there is some overlap between the two verbs).

I suppose pouvais would also cover the idea of "be inclined to", "be able to bring oneself to"-- e.g. je savais parler français mais je ne pouvais pas-- "I could speak French but I couldn't bring myself to do so".