old" help" me phrase

Здравствуите!!
Как дела
When I first started to learn Russian,all of 3 months ago,I was stuck on this phrase, вы не могли бы мне помоч -"can you help me "--which I eventually overcame.
It was suggested to me that rather than learn whole phrases,that I looked more closley to the structure of each word,which was very god advice.
I noticed the other day while looking through my notebooks,that there seems to be a negative in this phrase...as theres the word "He"So with this,wouldnt the below phrase actually read as..."can you NOT help me/would you not help me"

вы(You) не (not) могли (can) бы мне (me) помоч (help)

Have I got this wrong???
As allways,many thanks

Don't be so unsure of yourself! Of course there is a negative in there.

The English equivalent is:
You wouldn't be able to help me (by any chance), would you?

The difference is that this is a bit contrived and a bit too polite in English, whereas in Russian it's certainly polite, but much more normal.

Russians often use не to indicate a question, although there are other ways too (such as "ли")..

Reading your post again, I guess what you haven't got clear yet is the бы particle - which has a lot in common with the English 'would'.

Brilliant...Thank you so much.
I actually thought that this meant "You wouldnt be able to help me,would you?" after learning from Pravit on these boards about the use of бы.
I have seen other sentances with similar "pit falls"
I guess sometimes,especially us English,"we cant see the wood for the trees"
Thanks again...at least I know that Im heading in the correct direction,altough very slowly..lol