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¡Qué pena! No puedes venir.

¡Qué pena! No puedes venir.
What a pity! You cannot come.
From Lesson 80:Exclamations (¡qué...!)·Spanish (Spain)

Breakdown of ¡Qué pena! No puedes venir.

no
no / not
qué
what
poder
to be able to
venir
to come
la pena
the pity

Questions & Answers about ¡Qué pena! No puedes venir.

Why is there no Spanish word for 'a' in ¡Qué pena! when we say 'What a pity!' in English?
In Spanish, when you use the exclamatory word ¡qué! immediately followed by a noun, you never use an indefinite article like un or una. You just connect qué directly to the noun. That is why 'What a pity!' translates simply to ¡Qué pena!.
Can ¡Qué pena! also mean 'What a shame!'?
Yes! In everyday Spanish, ¡Qué pena! is the most common way to say both 'What a pity!' and 'What a shame!'. The noun pena can refer to sorrow, pity, or a mild disappointment depending on the situation.
Why is the second verb, venir, not conjugated?
When you use a helping verb like poder (can / to be able to) followed by another action, only the first verb gets conjugated. Here, puedes is already conjugated for 'you', so the main action verb venir (to come) must stay in its basic infinitive form.
I remember the verb 'to be able to' is poder. Why does it change to puedes here?
Poder is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, the o in the root changes to ue for most subject pronouns, including the informal 'you' (tú). That is why it becomes puedes instead of 'podes'.

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