Portuguese on my mind...

1. I want to know - Eu quero saber
2. but I have enough - mas eu tenho bastantes
3. no, not enough - não bastante não
4. you alone don't have enough - você sozinho não tem bastante
5. My friends also are going - Os meus amigos também vão
6. Maria and Jose are going with us - Maria e Jose vão conosco
7. The money is for eating for drinking - O dineiro para comer e beber.
8. My wife is not here - minha esposa não está aqui
9. We are from America - Nós somos de América
10. We are in Brazil now - Nós estamos em Brasil agora
11. Where are you? - onde você esta?
12. I am in Brazil - Eu estou em Brasil
13. I am here - Eu estou aqui
14. Are you ready - você está pronto?
15. I am ready - Eu estou pronto
16. You want know what? - você quer sabe que?
17. I am leaving - Eu vou embora
18. We are leaving - Nós vamos embora
19. You are not ready - você não está pronto?
20. one hundred - cem
21. one hundred and ten - cento dez
22. two hundred - duzentos
23. three hundred - trezentos
24. for (in order to) - para

The use of "bastante" in Pimsleur is a bit misleading. It is not really "enough," but more like "plenty." "Enough" translates better to "suficiente."

Minor remarks:

You seem to have omitted the verb (e') from some of the sentences above.

cento e dez.

That sounds like way these two words act in Spanish also. You can always have bastante dinero/dinheiro but never suficiente dinero/dinheiro.

Hey Sandman, since you are the resident expert today, do you always include the "eu" and "voce" in a sentence or can you just use the appropriate verb like they do in Spanish?

Eu quero bastante tempo nu quarto.
or
Quero bastante tempo nu quarto.

"Se voce quiser" is something we learned a few lessons back. Why that way instead of "se voce quer"?

Sabio,

Thanks. I keep forgeting to add the to add the "e."

I also have a hard time hearing it when I do the lessons so I think that is also why I leave it out.

Tightfit:

Answering your questions:

Yes, you can just use the appropriate verb, in fact that's the way Brazilians speak (without the subject) 99% of the time, which is why spoken portuguese is so hard for Anglo-speakers to pick up. For instance, "Let's go" in English is just "Vamos" in Portuguse (Spanish too!), which the typical carioca then shortens to "Vam" (pronounced "Vum") and then to indicate "hurry up" will say "vam-vam" with maybe a little hand gesture (palm up, flick the fingers towards your body) - by which time the typical american is totally confused.

As for "quiser", it's the conditional tense (remember your latin!). "Se voce quiser" is literally "If you want" (and yes, you'll typically hear it said as "Se quiser"). Since there's an "IF" involved, the verb is conditional - quiser. It get's even more fun when it's a future or a past conditional - querera, quererei and other such tongue-twisters. Fortunately, most Brazilians don't know how to use these tenses properly either, so you'll be excused for mangling portuguese grammar, as long as you do it gently.

BS

Tight_fit

Let me elaborate on "quiser" a bit. A disclaimer first: You do not need any of this in your first 3 months of Portuguese. It may help though in not being puzzled by what others are saying.

Independently of the tense of the verb (past, future, etc.), Portuguese has two "moods" for the verbs; indicative (normal, matter-of-factual) and subjunctive (tentative, conditional). You can get away with only the indicative mood in many situations, so the extra effort of learning the subjunctive mood may not be warranted in the beginning.

There are 3 common tenses used in the subjunctive mood. I'll only talk here about the future tense since "quiser" is future subjunctive. The most common use of the future subjunctive is in the if statement. When you say "if you go to Brazil, you will have a good time," the verb "go" is in the subjunctive mood because it is an assumption; not a statement of fact. Similarly, "if you want" is in the subjunctive mood.

There is actually a semantic role for the use of the subjunctive. When you translate "If he accepts,..." you could say "se ele aceitar,..." (subjunctive) or "se ele aceita, ..." (indicative). The former implies that you don't know if he will accept or not. The latter implies that it has been established that he does accept, and now you are talking about the consequences. A bit subtle, but I find rather pretty.

Most verbs are conjugated in a simple way to get the future subjunctive. Just use the infinitive (ficar, pagar, beber) as is (with eu, voce, ele, and ela). However, there are irregular verbs that do not follow the rule, and querer is one of them. It becomes quiser in the future subjunctive. It is an additional pain in the neck to remember the irregular conjugations. Unfortunately, the irregular verbs are among the most commonly used verbs (if it weren't the case, the natives wouldn't remember the irregular conjugations ). BTW, "if it weren't" is in the subjunctive mood in English .

Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it. I am currently writing down a list of very short words who only differ by a few letters. Then I find out how each sounds when I reach that particular lesson. Hopefully, I will be able to use their pronounciation towards building a much larger vocabulary.

I am still bothered though by what I see as inconsistencies. Today I noticed an ending letter combination where in one word a particular letter had the tilde (I don't know what they call it in Portuguese) over it. não/são/mão I learned the sound of the word(s). Now I come across another word with the exact same letter combination ending, the exact same sound, but no tilde this time. ao Maybe I should hide the scratch paper and just try to memorize the words as I hear them.

I am begining to see slight differences in some words between the Portuguese version and that of Brazil. As least, assuming that the online translator I use is 100% correct. And I just recently found out that one sound on the Pimsleur is actually regional to Rio and is spoken differently elsewhere in the country. Whatever. Just as long as I don't end up sounding like the Brazilian version of Billy Bob from Arkansas talking about being abducted by ETs.

Sabio:

Thanks for clearing up the mush I made of explaining subjunctive tenses (moods, whatever). As a completely uneducated semi-native speaker (i.e. I've spoken Portuguese since I was a baby, but have had no formal education in it), I have no idea what I'm doing, I just go with what sounds right.

Tighfit:

As you've discovered, the "ão" sound is one of the most common in the portuguse language and the one that is hardest for anglo-speakers to pronounce properly. All I can say is listen to your tapes and try to get it as best you can. And yes it's called a tilde in portugugese too. The "ao" you ran into is a completely different word - it's pronounced "ow", as in "I stubbed my toe", and it means "to" as in "to a place" - "Vou ao bar" - "I'm going to the bar". And I don't know why/when you use "ao" instead of "para", mabe Sabio can elucidate.


I admire how methodically and persitently you are attacking portuguese. If I may suggest some next steps:

Get Globo television over Dish Network - about $100 setup and $25 a month for JUST Globo, you can get it cheaper if it's an add-on to a bigger (more expensive) package, but then the total cost is higher. Still, watching a hour or so of Brazilian Tv a night will do wonders for your portuguese (break out the VCR, tape a show, go thru it with your dictionary in hand untill you get the hang of it). The novelas are actually funonce you get into them , and since they are pretty repetitive, it's easy to figure out what's going on - this ain't Shakespeare! And "Mulheres Apaixonadas" has plenty of nice eye-candy

Buy a book you like in Portuguese (may have to wait for your net Brazil trip) and the original (or translation) in English. Read the two side-by-side.

Both of these activities wil help you go from having to think about each word to having your language just FLOW. Despite being unschooled in Portuguese, I've done plenty of ESL teaching in Brazil (English for Brazilians) and these steps really helped them go the other way around. Of course, the best way to learn is still horiontlly - with a brazilian girlfriend!

Enjoy,

BS

Badseed:

You are lucky! The best way to speak a language fluently is the natural way, not the scientific way .

As you say, "ao" means "to the" (the feminine being "a" with a backward accent). The difference between "ao" and "para o" (optionally abbreviated "pro") is that "ao" implies a short stay at the destination (vou ao bar), whereas "para o" implies a real stay at the destination (vou para o Brasil).

Hmmm...then it definitely should be "Vou para o bar" ;-)

Actually never heard it said that way (short stay/long stay) , just know that it sounds wrong saying "Vou ao Brasil", etc. And as I said, best way to learn a language is horizontally!

BS

Thinking about it you have the same thing in Spanish. "Voy a Mexico" has a slightly differently meaning then "voy para Mexico" even though they both translate the same.

This evening I went to a friend's birthday at a local restaurant. I actually took along a 3 page pronouciation guide to Portuguese that I found on the web today and printed off. It looks pretty good.

http://www.geocities.com/email_theguy/old_po/pronouncing_portuguese.htm

While we all waited for the table I stood in a corner and practiced saying different sounds. Very anti social and weird so I had to stop after a few minutes. The moment of truth was when I realized how the "e" was pronounced in some words that are spelled the same in both Portuguese and Spanish and contain more than one "e" in the same word. Eureka! I let out a loud wow and then realized that I was definitely losing it in front of a crowd of people. I tried to explain why the word "bebe" had been bothering me with its obvious two different sounds of the same letter and now I have learned the whys and hows for future words. No one had a clue as to what I was talking about. They probably won't invite me to the next party.