Ok,ok.. I made this one up. It may look like shameless self-promotion, but it's a problem I often see in student writing. Honest.
Consider this scenario:
When GuruEAP first arrived in Indonesia he could speak only English and French. Now, after 27 years in Indonesia, he can speak Indonesian fluently. Last weekend he bought some bananas from the local market and he was able to negotiate a reasonable price.
Here there are two kinds of ability:
So if we return to the original problem:
After a struggle, she was able to upright herself and swim to shore.
All of the other workers left the project, but I was able to complete it by myself.
Despite the pandemic, the business was able to continue operating.
Unfortunately, nobody was able to help.
When she saw Tom with another woman, Kelly was unable to hide her disappointment.