A frase “de 5 em 5 minutos”

Portuguese Questions
1

Hi all – I understand the meaning of the phrase “este autocarro passa de 10 em 10 minutos” to be this bus goes every 10 minutes and I’m fine to accept it as idiomatic but could anyone explain to me literally how it makes sense to the Portuguese tongue.

I can’t get my head around why the quantity would be repeated. “This bus goes of ten in ten minutes” just doesn’t work in English. What am I missing?

Many thanks

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2

“De X em X” in Portuguese means “in an interval of X” or “from X to X+X”. I’m not sure if it’s possible to dissect it any further when coming from a foreign language’s perspective - each language has their own specificities :slight_smile: In any case, we can also say “a cada 5 minutos” in Portuguese, which is a more direct correspondence to “every 5 minutes”.

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