Marina
Pedro- Luís: Boa tarde, Maria. Como é que estás? Luís: Good afternoon, Maria. How are you?
- Maria: Boa tarde. Estou bem, obrigada. E tu? Maria: Good afternoon. I'm fine, thanks. And you?
- Luís: Também estou bem. Luis: I'm fine too.
- Maria: Nunca mais te tinha visto desde que nos encontrámos no metro. Maria: I haven't seen you since we met on the metro.
- Luís: É verdade. Já estava com saudades de saber mais acerca de ti. Luís: It's true. I was already missing knowing more about you.
- Como é que estão a ser as tuas férias aqui no Porto? How are your holidays here in Porto?
- Maria: Estão a ser fantásticas. Desde que falei contigo, já fui visitar a Ribeira e a Foz, Maria: They are fantastic. Since I spoke to you, I have already visited Ribeira and Foz,
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Vocabulary
AcolhedorasWelcoming Baixa da cidadeDowntown o concertoconcert as fériasvacations, holidays a livrariabookstore o metrosubway, metro o planoplan
Expressions
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Comments
Olá! Could you please explain the use of mais-que-perfeito in the following sentence: “Nunca mais te tinha visto desde que nos encontrámos no metro.” Thank you!
Olá, Tibor! Ideally, the pretérito mais-que-perfeito would be used for events in a distant past, before something that happened in a more recent past. But in practice, apart from that, it may also appear in everyday conversation in contexts where the simple past would be enough. That’s the case here. The simple past would be absolutely fine and even more correct (Nunca mais te vi desde que nos encontrámos no metro), but the speaker went for the mais-que-perfeito as just another alternative, even though the action of not seeing him happened after, not before, the time they crossed paths on the subway. A feature of casual Portuguese speech 🙂
Obrigado pela explicação!
Como é que estão a ser as ferias…
Is the ‘a ser’ necessary here and why?
Also if I want to ask How were your holidays, would I use estiveram or estavam? I’m hoping it’s estiveram!!
Thanks in advance.
Olá! Since we’re talking about an ongoing situation, the Present Continuous is applicable here. “A ser” is necessary if we want to clearly express that continuity, since it’s what helps form the Portuguese version of the Present Continuous (auxiliary verb estar + preposition a + main verb in the infinitive).
To ask “How were your holidays”, we’d say: Como foram as (tuas) férias? 🙂 “Foram” is a past conjugation of the verb “ser”. Note how the verb “ser” is also the main verb in “estão a ser”.
Obrigada Joseph, fax sentido!