When a personal blog says, “You can do this if you use

  • “Oh, so if I use ~, I can do ~!” but this is not right.

  • All we can read from this sentence is “this person thinks that if he uses ~, he can do ~“.

  • Not sure if it was actually done.

  • Not even sure if they tried.

  • I’d actually try it and when I could do it, I’d write “I did it.”

    • Attach evidence of completion such as photos, videos, source code, etc.
    • There is no point in saying “I could” or “I can” without evidence of having done so.
  • Even if “could” is true, it’s only “this person was able to use ~ to do ~.”

    • Only that it could be done under the conditions that the person tried.
    • No guarantee that it can be done under other conditions.
  • Knowledge must be validated by practice


This page is auto-translated from /nishio/「できる」を信じてはいけない using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.