If I can only swim a few metres before stopping, then I drown when I stop, then I can't swim.
If I'm terrible at running, I can just stop and not have my lungs fill up with water.
That's a pretty big difference. If you get chucked into the middle of an Olympic pool and aren't 100% sure you could get out, then I'd say you can't swim.
Usually when you talk about being able to swim it's about safety in aquatic activities. My grandpa almost died swimming in a small river without much current because he wasn't that good at swimming. He didn't die, but because it was that close I'd say he didn't know how to swim.
You wouldn't say you can ride a bike if you fall after a few metres.
Different activities have different contexts for what "being able to do it" means.
If I said I can't drive, that means I have no license and probably think there's too high of a chance of something going wrong if I drove. That doesn't mean that idk how to steer, hit the gas, or brake.
If I said I can't walk that means I'm paralyzed.
Swimming is somewhere in between those two on the spectrum of "what does it mean when I say I can't".
I'd say that I am currently a bad/weak swimmer because I had some independent practice recently, but there was definitely a time where I'd say I didn't know how to swim even though I had taken lessons at that point.
If I can only swim a few metres before stopping, then I drown when I stop, then I can't swim.
If I'm terrible at running, I can just stop and not have my lungs fill up with water.
That's a pretty big difference. If you get chucked into the middle of an Olympic pool and aren't 100% sure you could get out, then I'd say you can't swim.
Usually when you talk about being able to swim it's about safety in aquatic activities. My grandpa almost died swimming in a small river without much current because he wasn't that good at swimming. He didn't die, but because it was that close I'd say he didn't know how to swim.
You wouldn't say you can ride a bike if you fall after a few metres.
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Different activities have different contexts for what "being able to do it" means.
If I said I can't drive, that means I have no license and probably think there's too high of a chance of something going wrong if I drove. That doesn't mean that idk how to steer, hit the gas, or brake.
If I said I can't walk that means I'm paralyzed.
Swimming is somewhere in between those two on the spectrum of "what does it mean when I say I can't".
I'd say that I am currently a bad/weak swimmer because I had some independent practice recently, but there was definitely a time where I'd say I didn't know how to swim even though I had taken lessons at that point.
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