Is "I bought this radio here yesterday, but it can't work" grammatical?

Question

—Can I help you, sir? —Yes, I bought this radio here yesterday, but it ____.

A. didn’t work B. won’t work C. can’t work D. doesn’t work

I know we can choose D, and the given answer is also D. But dose C work?

Answer 1

As you pointed out, answer D is the best and most idiomatic of all the answers.

All of the other answers could theoretically work, but the strangest one is actually C. Examples:

I bought this radio here yesterday, but it didn't work.

The potential interpretation is that you tested it when you got home yesterday and it didn't work then, so you assume it still doesn't work now. It's essentially the same meaning as doesn't with a little less force behind it.

I bought this radio here yesterday, but it won't work.

There are a couple of potential interpretations here:

1. You tried a lot of times to make it work, but no matter what you tried, it still wouldn't work.
2. The radio works, but it doesn't do some specific thing that you need it to do.

I bought this radio here yesterday, but it can't work.

The potential interpretation here is actually the same as the second one with "won't." That is, the radio works as intended, but you needed it to have some specific feature that it doesn't have, so it can't work for your purpose. This would be an unusual way to express this, and "won't" would be more common, but it is possible. I'd say it's in the "playful" language category and would suggest avoiding it. A native speaker could get away with it. Anyone with an accent is more likely to just have it written down to "you're not a native English speaker."