ㄹ 수 없다

cannot; there's no way to

The flat negative of ability or possibility — we can't escape Seoul, I can't leave the chairman's seat empty, no clue what the problem is, I can't lose. One fixed phrase built on it, meaning roughly "there's nothing to be done about it", turns up twice in these clips and is worth learning whole. Compare 지 못하다, which points at a person failing to manage something they wanted to do; ㄹ 수 없다 says the possibility itself is closed.

Register: neutral; all levels