Welcome to Lesson A of Story Time for Portuguese

Transcrição

1 Portuguese Lesson A

2 Welcome to Lesson A of Story Time for Portuguese Story Time is a program designed for students who have already taken high school or college courses or students who have completed other language programs. The alphabetical lessons, starting with Lesson A, are meant to be practice for beginners of the Portuguese Language. If you are familiar with this language, please begin with Lesson 1. Here are the words and phrases we will go over in this lesson. I Eu You Você Yes Sim No Não Ma am Senhora Excuse me Com licença actually means with permission or literally with license The English language Inglês Understand Entender Speak Falar

3 Let s begin a short story about a man named John who is visiting a Portuguese speaking country. He sees a woman and wants to speak to her. He says, Excuse me Com licença Com li cen ça Com licença These are two words, Com means with and licença means permission or license Since you are interrupting the person, you are asking for permission to do so. The woman seems a bit older and may be married. John refers to her as, Ma am Senhora Se nho ra Senhora John says, Excuse me ma am Com licença senhora Com licença senhora Com li cen ça se nho ra Com licença, senhora He would like to know if she understands English, he asks, Do you understand? Você entende? Vo cê en ten de? Você entende? In English, the word, do is an auxiliary verb or a dummy verb. This means that it is used only to help form sentences but does not have a meaning on its own. This dummy verb does not translate into other languages. In Portuguese, to say, Do you understand? you simply ask, You understand? Você entende?

4 Você entende? The Portuguese language, like all romance languages, which include, French, Italian, Spanish, has verbs that are modified for each subject and tense. For every verb that is encountered, there will be dozens of variations that would be used in everyday speech. The first example was in the question, Do you understand? Você entende? The verb understand is Entender This form is called the infinitive. All other forms of the verb are derived from this one. When you use the word for you Você the word for understand entender changes into entende. This form is only applicable for the present tense which is used to make statements about current facts. Since there are dozens of variations or conjugations of entender it will take time to recognize each and know its usage. Only through repetition and practice can you achieve fluency, not by pure memorization. Let s go back to the story. John says, Excuse me, ma am Com licença senhora Do you understand? Você entende? When interacting with strangers or superiors, Portuguese speakers would normally address someone as The sir or The Madame Here is how you say, The Madame A senhora Do you understand? or Does the Madame understand? A senhora entende? A senhora entende? A senhora entende?

5 English? Inglês In glês Inglês Do you understand English? Você entende inglês? Does the Madame understand English? A senhora entende inglês? John says again, Excuse me, ma am Com licença, senhora Do you understand English? The woman says, Yes Sim Sim Sim

6 I understand Eu entendo Eu en ten do Eu entendo The word for I is Eu We encountered another form of the verb, Understand Entender The word entendo is used when speaking about yourself. Practice, I understand Eu entendo Eu entendo You understand Você entende Você entende The woman says, I understand English Yes, I understand English Sim, eu entendo inglês Sim, eu entendo inglês John says again, Excuse me ma am Com licença senhora

7 Do you understand English? Yes, I understand Sim, eu entendo Sim, eu entendo I understand English Now John asks, Do you speak? Você fala? Vo cê fa lá? Você fala? The verb, To speak is Falar Remember that this is the infinitive. Also remember that the word Do is not translated. You simply ask, You speak? Since John is speaking to the lady, he uses, Fala He asks again, Do you speak? Você fala? Você fala? Do you speak English? Você fala inglês? Você fala inglês?

8 Remember that when addressing a woman you don t know, it would be extra polite to refer to her as The Madame A senhora Do you understand English? Do you speak English? A senhora fala inglês? Você fala inglês? She says, Yes, I speak English Sim, eu falo inglês Sim, eu falo inglês Notice that the verb falar when speaking about yourself is falo Practice, I speak Eu falo Eu falo You speak Você fala Você fala The lady says, I understand English I speak English Eu falo inglês Eu falo inglês

9 Let s assume John approaches another woman. He says, Excuse me Com licença Com licença Excuse me ma am Com licença senhora Com licença senhora Do you speak English? A senhora fala inglês? Você fala inglês? The woman replies, No Não I do not speak English Notice that there is no word for Not. You simply say, não The phrase, I do not speak is Eu não falo Eu não falo She says, I do not speak English John asks, Do you understand English?

10 No Não I do not understand Eu não entendo Eu não entendo I do not speak English I do not understand English Eu não entendo inglês Eu não entendo inglês

11 Now it is time to test your understanding. See if you can follow this Portuguese conversation. Com licença senhora Sim? Sim, eu entendo inglês Você fala inglês? Não, eu não falo inglês Hopefully this very short conversation was easy to follow. If it wasn t, here is the English translation: Excuse me, ma am Yes? Do you (Does the Madame) understand English? Yes, I understand English Do you speak English? No, I do not speak English