Does "never got to" mean "could not" here? How does the nuance/meaning change if I replace "never got to" with "could not"?

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Yes, "never got to" can mean "could not", but there is a difference in nuance as it is more extreme than "could not". "Could not" just means that something was not able to be done, but "never got to" implies that something was never able to be done, which implies that someone tried multiple times and failed. "Could not" is also a little bit more formal than "never got to". Ex: I could not cook dinner for her. Ex: I never got to cook dinner for her. In the example above, "could not" implies that the speaker was not able to cook dinner for her, because something prevented them from cooking dinner. In the second example, however, "never got to" means "wasn't able to". This implies that they didn't have the ability to cook dinner for her even though they may have had several opportunities, because they probably ran out of time.

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