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Eu Só Queria Tomar o Pequeno-Almoço

I Just Wanted To Have Breakfast

Diogo is in a bad mood and just wants some breakfast. Unfortunately, everywhere he goes seems to be closed.

Listen for regular -ir verbs in the present tense throughout the story, including abrir, desistir, vestir, and decidir. Remember, they’re conjugated with almost the same endings as regular -er verbs!

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  • 00:00:03Diogo abre a janela.
  • 00:00:05Está demasiado frio.
  • 00:00:08Ele fecha a janela.
  • 00:00:10Agora está demasiado quente.
  • 00:00:13Ele abre a janela.
  • 00:00:15Demasiado frio.
  • 00:00:17"Eu desisto!", diz Diogo.
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abertoOpen abrirto open a camisolasweater, jersey, jumper o carrocar cedoearly conduzirto drive, to lead DecidirTo decide depressaquickly desistirto give up Dizerto say, to tell o empregadoemployee, worker masc. a entradaEntrance esperarto hope, wait fecharto close, shut O frigoríficoThe refrigerator friocold hojetoday irto go a janelawindow o pequeno-almoçobreakfast a portadoor QuenteHot, warm sairto leave, go out, exit o supermercadosupermarket vestirto dress, wear, put on
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Ter muita fomeReally hungry (literally: having a lot of hunger) Estar com muita fomeBeing really hungry (literally: being with a lot of hunger) É para já!Right away! A que horas...?At what time...? DesculpeSorry, Excuse me formal sente-seSit down, Take a seat formal
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Aprender uma Nova Língua
O Delicioso Pastel de Nata
Passeio De Domingo
O Diário da Beatriz
Gostos Semelhantes
Um Passeio Estragado
À Procura de um Apartamento
Queres Vir Cá Jantar?
Uma Série de Perguntas
Dois Pais à Conversa

Comments

  • I am curious about the use of the plural “Estão abertos?” when indicating whether the café is open or not and in the the next sentence referring to “o empregado”. What dictates the use of the plural when referring to the café being open?

    • Good question! In this context, even though he’s speaking to one person and referring to one café, it’s basically like saying “Are you guys open?” or “Are you all open?”, treating the café as the whole set of people who work there.

  • I noticed that the story used “Eu desisto” for “I give up.” Could you also use “Eu deixo”? I think I’ve seen “deixar” used in the sense of leave it be.

    • “Eu deixo” wouldn’t sound very natural. Only if it were a direct response to the imperative “Deixa” (leave it be) – maybe this is what you’ve heard!

      • Thank you very much! What I don’t get is the difference between ‘até ao’ as in ‘ele conduz até ao supermercado’, then ‘para o’ es in ‘caminha para o café’ and ‘na’ as in ‘vamos na praia’.
        What is the rule behind these? As in English ‘to the’ all of these would translate to only one form ‘zum/zur’ in German.

        • Olá! “Até a” and “para” are often used interchangeably, with the nuance that in its essence, “até a” means “until” or “up to”, so in certain contexts, it’s used to indicate a limit or target, as opposed to “para”, which just means “to”. For example:
          – Podes ir para ali -> This simply means that you can move to that position.
          – Podes ir até ali -> This means that that position is as far as you can go; it’s the limit of your range.

          As for “no/na”, we don’t use it for movement in European Portuguese, although you might see it often in Brazilian Portuguese and in the Portuguese variants spoken across the African continent. So, instead of “vamos na praia”, we would only say “vamos à praia/vamos para a praia/vamos até à praia”. The first is the most common option.

  • Really enjoyed that ! Really feel that I am making progress although I had to listen 3 times before I really understood.

    • Thanks, glad you liked it! And that sounds perfect actually. It wouldn’t be teaching you much if you understood it entirely on the first try! 🙂

  • I like these shorties but I find it so difficult to catch what’s being said as I read the translation as it’s so quick… I know that’s how it is spoken. I’ll keep listening to more shorties.
    Stella

    • Glad you’re sticking with it! It will slowly get easier over time. You can also keep clicking the 1x in the upper right of the player to slow it down a bit. 🙂

  • In this section, Diogo says queria for I want instead of querio. Why is that?
    Also he asks for a tosta mista. Is that always with ham and cheese or are there different versions of it?

    “Queria um café e uma tosta-mista, por favor.”
    “Thank you, sir!” answers Diogo. “I’d like a coffee and a ham and cheese toastie, please.

    • Olá!
      1) “Querio” doesn’t exist – verbs only have one form, which does not vary with the gender of the speaker. So, we can only say “queria”.
      2) By default, a “tosta mista” is with ham and cheese. There can be other variations, but they should be explicitly named (e.g. “tosta mista de bacon“).

      • Re “queria” – your web site’s conjugation for querer shows “queria” as the first person “indicativo – imperfeito”, meaning “I used to want”. Shouldn’t Diogo be saying “Quero um café…”?

        • William 🙂

          This is considered to be a delicate way to order something. Almost like, “if you don’t mind, I would like to have a coffee”. The person how orders is guaranteeing that isn’t bothering or disturbing the waiter.

          This has become almost a joke in Portugal. When one orders something:
          – Eu queria um café, por favor.
          The waiter answers back (ironically):
          – Queria? já não quer? 😜

          Quero um café, is totally correct, though. If you say it this way, just don’t forget to end with por favor, or it may sound rude.

          Please consider this Learning Note where you can find more detailed information: Past Continuous Tense | Practice Portuguese

      • My first question was going to be about the use of “quero” in place of “queria”, but I did my homework and read all the comments. So, is “quero” ever used? Is it an ‘dead verb’? Or do you it to deliberately to be impolite?
        My next question, which I did not see addressed is in the above discussion, relates to this sentence, “Está um empregado junto à entrada.”
        “Está” is third person present, meaning (he, she, or it) as I understand the use of verb forms. In this case, the verb seems to be saying, “It is an employee…” but it seems to me, “There is an employee…” is the meaning and I was expecting the the verb “Há”.
        Can you clarify when to use “Está” and “Há”?

        • Olá! “Quero” is alive and well, and is used very often. It only tends to be avoided specifically in the context of extra polite requests. Even then, if you use it paired with a “por favor” or “se faz favor”, you should be safe — the absence of those extra keywords will make you sound impolite much faster than “quero” per se.

          And yes, we do use the verb ‘estar’ rather similarly to ‘haver’. Differently from ‘haver’, we can argue that the subject is simply inverted (i.e. Um empregado está junto à entrada), rather than completely absent. Also, while ‘haver’ can be used in a general sense, ‘estar’ tends to apply to the context at hand, at that time, without generalizing it. These examples might help:
          – Há um empregado junto à entrada -> There’s a waiter at the entrance (Could be this one time or usually)
          – Está um empregado junto à entrada -> There’s a waiter at the entrance [now] (A comment that only applies to this specific moment)

          ‘Estar’ might also be used in reference to newly acquired information vs. something that is already known.
          – Há ali uma loja (something the speaker probably already knew before)
          – Está ali uma loja! (something the speaker has probably just realized)

          These are just some general pointers I can think of 🙂

  • Muito obrigado. Portuguese is my tenth language. It is coming slowly for my 70 year-old mind. After a year of Duolingo (Brazilian and that accent) and some Memrize along with a period of time in Tomar, Portugal (where we will live one day soon), Practice Portuguese is really helping me put it all together and making sense of the grammar and culture/history I’ve learned. My French makes me always see and hear “ele” as SHE, however. It is also maddening not to be able to rely on my French, Occitan, or Catalan to tell me the gender of various nouns. (Arbre is masculine in French but ARVORE is feminine in Portuguese, et al). Keep up the excellent work. To be honest, your competition, Portuguese with Leo, is also fun…(et il est si beau!).

    • Thank you for the kind feedback! Wow, 10 languages… that’s a huge accomplishment! Best of luck with your future move to Tomar. So glad to hear the site has been so helpful for you. 😊

  • Along the lines of what I think Albert above was asking, is it too brusque to say Quero, I want?
    Is queria more polite, and is it more like saying I wanted?

    • Olá, James. That’s correct 🙂 The present tense “quero” may sound a bit blunt, so we soften it up with the past imperfect form “queria” (I wanted/I would like). We cover that in this Learning Note, which also lists other uses of the imperfect tense: Past Continuous Tense

  • Thanks for the great learning materials!
    Is there any particular difference between “Estar com muita fome” and “Ter muita fome” or can these phrases be used interchangebly?

  • Everytime i get to these i feel deflated as there are so many words that i’ve not seen. So trying to follow along is difficult. It is ike i go through the unit, feel like i’m getting it , get to here and it makes little sense as i don’t understand the majority of it. So… how are others learning all of these words?
    On duolingo i felt i was making good progress, though it was brazilian. I now feel like i’m going backwards.

    • Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to understand every word at this stage, or even most of the words! That’s why the “Translate” button is there, so you can use it heavily, especially in the beginning. The goal of these dialogues is to show you how the concept you just learned works in a realistic context and to give you more exposure to the language. But when you’re just starting, realistic language is of course going to be above your level.

      Use it as a challenge to see what you can figure out, but otherwise, just rely the translation for now. Over time, as you gain more of a foundation, you can start to rely less on the translation and will have more ability to put the pieces together on your own.

      The reason we add challenges like this is that it’s an important part of making the transition from “knowing” the language to really “using” and understanding the language in the real world. But it is a gradual process to get there, so don’t feel discouraged.

      Also, if you’re feeling like what you’re learning so far is not sticking, make sure to do Smart Review regularly to review the concepts along the way. I hope that helps a bit, hang in there!

      • Thanks for the encouragement to rely on the translation. I was viewing using it as a last resort when I wasn’t getting the meaning from just listening. And I was only getting about 10%. Knowing I am going to have to listen several times anyway, I now start with the translation. And I find I do better if I just read the English while listening and then turn off the translation and read the script while listening. Not trying to read both at the same time. I look forward to the day I can start by listening only and understand most of it. Your materials are wonderful!

  • I notice that the verb caminhar is used here and not andar. What is the difference please?

    • Olá, Pauline. The two verbs are generally synonyms 🙂 Of the two, andar is the most everyday choice. Caminhar can sometimes suggest longer distances or a more purposeful exercise, since the Portuguese word for hike is caminhada and the verb caminhar is directly related to it.

  • before the dialogue starts a voice says something, it sounds like bom tu com, but I can’t make sense of it. What is being said.

  • This one was more difficult because I was expecting a dialogue but it turned out to be a narrated story. It took me a little while to recognize that difference – puzzled at first about why everything was third person. I feel like dialogues are more helpful in terms of real world usage, but of course any listening practice is good! I appreciate the amount of listening practice you offer.

  • I always do my first listen without looking at the text, just to see how much I can follow by listening.
    I was a little confused about the “open the window/close the window” part at first as I was expecting dialogue 😂
    I actually quite enjoyed his little adventure though.

  • Does the person telling the story have a Brazilian accent? I see he is speaking correct European Portuguese, but certain words have a Brazilian flavour

    • Olá! None of the voice talents have Brazilian accents, but they are from different parts of Portugal, so you might notice distinct pronunciation patterns due to regional variations, on top of natural individual speech patterns 🙂

  • I was just looking through one of your reflexive pronoun lessons (which I’m still pretty lost with!), so I’m curious why this line “Diogo abre o armário e veste uma camisola” doesn’t need the reflexive pronoun – “veste-se”? Obrigada!

    • Olá! The reflexive pronoun only applies if the object is the same as the subject (as if we were saying that Diogo dresses himself). In the line that you mentioned, the object for ‘veste’ is ‘uma camisola’, so no reflexive pronoun can be used.

      • Obrigada pela sua resposta!
        I’m still a bit confused, as I’ve seen many other examples where there’s an object, but the reflexive pronoun is still used, for example: Posso sentar-me nesta cadeira? Or: Lembro-me da palavra. In these cases, would you also drop the reflexive pronoun?

        • De nada! I need to clarify that by object, I was referring only to the direct object – that’s what the reflexive pronoun typically stands in for (with few exceptions). In the example you gave with the verb ‘sentar’, the reflexive pronoun is the only direct object. As for the example with the verb ‘lembrar’, it’s out of scope, because the pronoun that goes with ‘lembrar’ is not truly reflexive — it’s one of those verbs that we call pseudo-reflexive (a group that includes verbs such as esquecer or arrepender), because the apparently reflexive pronoun does not actually serve that purpose. It just integrates the verb structure without any specific function. One of those tricky Portuguese things!

          • Thanks again Joseph. Hm, I think I may need to refer direct and indirect objects! In the example, “Posso sentar-me nesta cadeira? ” – I was thinking that the direct object is the chair, but after your message, it sounds like it’s myself/the person?
            Thank you for introducing me to “pseudo-reflexive” verbs!

          • Usually, direct objects answer to the question “What?”. For example, in the sentence “Eu comprei um livro” (I bought a book), ‘um livro’ is the direct object: You bought what? A book.

            In the sentence “Posso sentar-me nesta cadeira?” (Can I sit on this chair?), the direct object is indeed ‘myself’, via the pronoun ‘-me’. They are sitting themselves on the chair, so to speak. This is perhaps more obvious when you compare it to sitting someone else, like a baby: “Posso sentar o bebé aqui?”. In this case, the baby would be the direct object.

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