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If we take the sentence "I could have gone to college, but I decided to take a profitable job on a construction site", I think it could be rendered in Russian as follows:

  1. Я мог учиться в колледже, но решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.
  2. Я мог бы учиться в колледже, но решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.
  3. Я возможно бы учился в колледже, но решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.
  4. Для меня возможно было учиться в колледже, но я решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.
  5. Для меня возможно было бы учиться в колледже, но я решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.

I personally don't see any differences between these translations.

Considering my having possibly been misled, and the particle "бы" not expressing the conditional mood here, it must nevertheless be playing some role.

What is that role of "бы" here?

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  • 1
    I can't speak for the Russian, but in English, could in that sentence isn't conditional; it's the past tense of can meaning that the speaker had the opportunity to go to school, but opted instead to work construction.
    – CocoPop
    Commented Feb 14 at 16:03
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    @CocoPop Thank you very much for "had the opportunity". It has arrived pat on target.
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 15 at 10:21
  • Couldn't you put me on to which parts of my original text may be reckoned grammatically correct, thow laboured, forced and non-idiomatic? And which are unacceptable in terms of grammar at all?
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 15 at 10:55
  • I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. The things I left alone are grammatically acceptable and idiomatic. The things I changed... needed changing.
    – CocoPop
    Commented Feb 15 at 13:25
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    @CocoPop Thank you!
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 15 at 16:11

2 Answers 2

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Я мог бы учиться в колледже, но решил взяться за доходную работу на стройке.

First of all, let's talk about бы.

Besides conditional sentences, бы has some modal meanings: hypothetical, suppositional opportunity, necessity, etc. Here we have an opportunity, don't we?

All the other variations seem unnatural.

I just tried to come up with any other correct sentence I could think of. Here the register is more official.

У меня была возможность учиться в ....

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  • Could you put me up to which of the patterns may be thought of as forced, far-fetched? And what would you think of something like this: "Я может быть бы в колледже бы учился,..."?
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 16 at 11:21
  • *Could you tell me which of the patterns...
    – CocoPop
    Commented Feb 16 at 12:36
  • I believe one бы will do, and it is better to change the verb for поучился.But it is still просторечие (common parlance). And all the variations with возможно are as you say за уши притянутые --- far-fetched.
    – V.V.
    Commented Feb 16 at 17:01
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My vote is for #2, "я мог бы учиться в ". However, additionally:

1 I'd use a perfect, rather than imperfect, verb.

2 in contemporary Russian usage, "колледж" is not what we usually mean by "college" in English.

So I prefer "я мог бы поступить (or пойти) в университет".

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2
  • This particle "бы" is what I am not taking in to the fullest. With "could have gone" not being a 3rd Conditional here, the idea it is conveying can be gotten across like this (I've cut down the pattern a little): "I could have gone to college, but finally I decided not to do that" = "It had been possible for me to go to college, but finally I decided not to do that" = "It had been possible that I would go to college, but finally I decided not to do that" ≈ "I had had the ability (I had been capable of) to go to college, but finally I decided not to do that".
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 15 at 10:13
  • What is that tinge which "бы" imparts to the language in this and similar contexts?
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 15 at 10:16

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