Yes, no and you in Portuguese

Moderator:Luís

Tychi
Posts:71
Joined:2004-11-19, 13:26
Real Name:Frithjof Meinke
Gender:male
Location:Rostock
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:
Yes, no and you in Portuguese

Postby Tychi » 2005-03-23, 13:37

Hello Everybody

I read about some pecularities in Portuguese and would like to know if they are true.
There are Paul and Lisa.

English:
Lisa: "Are you hungry?"
Paul: "Yes (I am)."

Portuguese literally translated:
Lisa: "Is Paul hungry?"
Paul: "Paul is hungry."

Is there really no yes and no und no personal pronouns?

Thanks, Tychi

User avatar
Luís
Forum Administrator
Posts:7874
Joined:2002-07-12, 22:44
Location:Lisboa
Country:PTPortugal (Portugal)

Postby Luís » 2005-03-23, 14:49

Tychi wrote:I read about some pecularities in Portuguese


Are you sure it was Portuguese?

Tychi wrote:Is there really no yes and no und no personal pronouns?


Of course there are words for "yes", "no" and personal pronouns in Portuguese... :roll:
In fact there are far more pronouns for "you" in Portuguese than, for instance, in English.

Tychi wrote:Portuguese literally translated:
Lisa: "Is Paul hungry?"
Paul: "Paul is hungry."


I don't know where you got this (you don't seem to present any examples in the actual language), but it's not correct. While you can indeed say things like "Is Paul hungry?" (in a formal polite context), the same is not true when it comes to the second sentence, unless you're under 2 years of age or NulNuk.

A correct literal translation (using the 2nd person singular) would be:

Lisa: Tens fome?
you-have hunger?
Paul: Tenho. / Sim, tenho.
i-have / yes, i-have
Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales

User avatar
Psi-Lord
Posts:10081
Joined:2002-08-18, 7:02
Real Name:Marcel Q.
Gender:male
Location:Cândido Mota
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-03-23, 14:54

Same on the southwest side of the Atlantic (aka Brazil)—that same dialogue here might be, among other options, like this:

Lisa: "Você está com fome?"
Paul: "Estou, sim."

Literally:

Lisa: 'You are with hunger?'
Paul: 'I-am, yes.'
português do Brasil (pt-BR)British English (en-GB) galego (gl) português (pt) •• العربية (ar) български (bg) Cymraeg (cy) Deutsch (de)  r n km.t (egy) español rioplatense (es-AR) 日本語 (ja) 한국어 (ko) lingua Latina (la) ••• Esperanto (eo) (grc) français (fr) (hi) magyar (hu) italiano (it) polski (pl) Türkçe (tr) 普通話 (zh-CN)

User avatar
alois
Posts:911
Joined:2004-02-25, 2:08
Real Name:Daniel Alois Martins
Gender:male
Location:Belo Horizonte
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Postby alois » 2005-03-23, 15:23

Well, sincerely, I don't know where you took the pronouns' subject from, but when it comes to the absence of a word like "yes", it is relatively correct. Let me explain.

At least in Brazilian Portuguese, virtually no one will ever answer a question like that only with "sim", because this word is almost no longer used for answering yes-or-no kind of questions.

(Você) está com fome?
Estou.

Are you with hunger?
I-am


"Sim" is mainly used to give an emphasis on the answer:

Você não está com fome???
Estou sim!

You are not with hunger??
I-am yes!


"Sim" can also be used to make differences between statements like:

Este é um bom jogador.
Este sim é um bom jogador.

Which mean, respectively:

This is a good player (Just like in English), and
This is a good player (but not those)


(Well, perhaps some one else could explain this difference better than me :roll: )

"Não" is used just like English "no":

Está com fome?
Não.

User avatar
bender
Posts:996
Joined:2003-10-27, 5:40
Real Name:Ricardo Caputo
Gender:male
Location:São Paulo
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Postby bender » 2005-03-26, 21:08

Hefestos wrote:At least in Brazilian Portuguese, virtually no one will ever answer a question like that only with "sim", because this word is almost no longer used for answering yes-or-no kind of questions.


Once a seller asked my friend: "Você quer um lápis"? (Do you want one pencil?). He answered: "Sim", and obviously he was misunderstood... She gave him five pencils (five = cinco).
Please correct me whenever I make a mistake. / Corrigez-moi toujours quand je ne parle pas bien. / Me corrijan siempre cuando hable mal.

User avatar
ExtraTerrestre
Posts:88
Joined:2004-11-13, 19:34
Gender:female
Location:Pedro Leopldo, MG
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Postby ExtraTerrestre » 2005-03-27, 17:34

in the major part of time even the subject and the "sim" don't appear...
- Está com fome?
_ Estou [or, in a slang, "tou" or "tô", a contraction of the verb estar...]
Languages: Português, English
Learning: Italiano
Next Ones: Français, Deustch, Svenska, Español (maybe), Suomi


Return to “Portuguese (Português)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests