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Consider the following two sentences.

A: 僕は左と右が区別できない。

B: 僕は左と右を区別することができない。

I often see B but just know A now.

How can A be possible? What kind of grammar is A?

* * *

The following sentence (from the [Tanaka
Corpus](http://www.edrdg.org/wiki/index.php/Tanaka_Corpus)) inspired me to ask
this question:

> その[坊や]{ぼうや}はツバメとスズメが[区別]{くべつ}できない。  
>  The boy can't tell a swallow from a sparrow.
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2016-04-21T15:24:50.913
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question
grammar potential-form
What is N+できる grammar?
Both are correct. できる means exactly the same thing as することができる. You can treat
it as a special potential form of する.

So it's not that できる is being attached to a noun, it's that it is taking the
place of する in a する verb.

Here are a couple more examples:

```

    この部屋はうるさくて勉強できない。（勉強することができない）
    
    明日の予約が確認できた。（予約を確認することができた）
    
```

Note that it's most common to mark the thing that you can do with が rather
than を because, like potential forms in general, できる really means that such-
and-such "is doable." You'll see を sometimes but you can consider が the the
traditionally correct way to phrase it.

Hope that helps!
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2016-04-21T15:55:45.963
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answer