Era uma noite escura e tempestuosa

#21

(Secção 4)

De manhã, Estevão acordou às sete horas. E o telemóvel estava perta da cama.
(in the morning, Steven woke at 7 am. And the phone was near the bed)

— Onde fico meus óculos?
(Where are my glasses?)

Eram também perta da cama. Coloco-lhe e pegou o telemóvel.
(They were also near the bed. He put them on and grabbed the phone)

— Quem ligou-me?
(Who called me?)

Ele consultou o telemóvel e ainda ficou confuso. O número de telephone esteve international. Não do Estados Unidos.
(He looked at the phone and was still confused. The number of the caller was international. Not from the US).

— Esquisito! O que pais de origem?
(Weird!, What country did it originate in?)

O código do pais esteve três oito zero. Fez um pesquisa por o código na internet.
(The area code was 380. He made another search for the area code on the internet)

— Ucrânia? — perguntou.
(Ukraine? he asked.)

— Isto é muito misterioso.
(This is very mysterious.)

#22

This is EXCELLENT! Thank you. I am not advanced enough to write this way, BUT with the translation you have provided, I can much easier figure out some of the conjugations I do not understand. Thanks for the effort! Harald

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#23

Yes, the translation is a very generous extra, @stephencanthony! Thanks. However, since the Portuguese text does need to be revised, I hope you didn’t take any notes yet, @hscharnhorst :slight_smile: Here are my corrections:

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#24

Obrigado para corrections. With the translations to English I could verify MY translations. For the most part I understood the Portuguese. I cannot write any of this at all, but I get the gist of what is said. I also went back and read all the entries under “Why did you learn Portuguese,” and found much stuff there in Portuguese I can understand. But there are gaps in the understanding that prevent total comprehension of the words and paragraphs.

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#25

You’re welcome. Hopefully, over time, those gaps will be bridged. It’s part of the whole process!

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#26

Obrigado… Obviamente está necessidade a desligar ‘auto-correct’ :slight_smile:

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#27

(Secção 5)

Mas, Estevão esteve atrasado para o escritório, e precisou a tomar um duche. Depois, com todos às outras coisas para tralbaho, esquecou sobre o telefonema.
(But, Steven was late for work, and needed to shower. Afterwards, with all the other things at work, he forgot about the telephone call)

Depois de uma semana, na Quinta, Estevão esteve a falar com colegas de profissão. Contou-os a história sobre do telefonema noturno.
(A week later, on Thursday, Steve had a conversation with work colleagues. He told them the story of the night-time telephone call)

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#28

@stephencanthony, I merged all of your topics into one, because it makes it much easier to keep track not only of the story, but also of all the feedback you’ve been getting, especially since a lot of the previous feedback is or will be relevant to later sections. I marked each section at the top of the respective post and you can continue doing the same, I guess.

Now, here is how I would correct the latest section:

Some quick notes:

  1. Escritório means ‘office’. If that’s where he works, it’s all perfect. If not, trabalho is the proper and non-specific translation for ‘work’. Also, co-workers or work colleagues are preferably called colegas de trabalho, because colegas de profissão is used more in the sense of ‘peers’ and could even include people you don’t actually work with, as long as you all work in the same field. Colegas de trabalho is usually strictly for people in the same workplace.

  2. According to the Acordo Ortográfico, we no longer capitalize days of the week or months. But we used to, so even native speakers are still adjusting to that, in some cases, or sticking to their old ways! :slight_smile:

  3. There have been some misspellings of verb conjugations throughout different sections of your story (Esquecou, atendou…). This is easy for you to self-correct, because the misspelled verb conjugations simply don’t exist and you won’t find them in a conjugation table. While you’re writing, double check the conjugations for the verbs you want to include and you’ll never write them wrong. Choosing the right tense is a different story (heh) and requires practice, but writing each conjugation properly is a very important first step, so invest some time in that, if you can.

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#29

Appreciate reading the entries offered here.

I am going to have to look at them some more for it all to sink in. It is a “slow boat to China!”

I am going to dabble in this now. If it is too bad I will hold off doing any more, but if it shows at least a bit of merit, then maybe I should do more.

Bom dia!

Meu filho Thor, tem um cao novo! Nome para ela e “NALA.” Ela esta um Fala Brasiliero e ela tem seis semanas!

A namorada do Thor dar Nala para dele. Nala e um aniversario presente no Thor… O cao e muito caro.

Amanha e aniversario do Thor!

Por favor, gosto do fotografias aqui!

Abracos, Harald

This is meant as an e mail to a friend. My son got an expensive puppy as a present from his girl friend and I want to convey the news. Harald

#30

Makes perfect sense.

Only some? :slight_smile: - it’s the problem with auto-correct in MS-word with English setup for the dictionary. Regardless, I’ll try to do better proof reading ahead of time.

I was, as you suggest, meaning office. But it’s good to know the nuance.

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#31

Secção 6
— De onde era? — perguntou meu colega João.
(where was it? - asked my colleague John)
— Ucrânia — disse
(Ukraine - I said)
— E os números?
(And the numbers?)
— 327501 e a palavra ‘leste’, e também 4728330 e a palavra ‘norte’.
(… and the word East, and also … and the word North)
— Misterioso. Mas espere… os números são uma posição da planeta!
(Mysterious… but wait… the numbers are a position of the planet)

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#32

Very brave, @hscharnhorst. I couldn’t understand the last sentence, but I got everything else. Since this is a female dog, you should refer to her as “cadela”. “Cão” is masculine. You also had trouble with prepositions, but that’s normal. We have lots of them and we use them very differently from the English prepositions. Also, ser vs. estar. And don’t forget the accents (unless you don’t have them/know how to use them on your keyboard)! They’re very important. If you’d like to keep posting your writings here and there, I can review them. In that case, let’s open a separate thread where you and other people can post, to leave room here for @stephencanthony’s ongoing story :slight_smile:

The only major correction here is that “planeta” is a masculine noun, so it should be preceded by “do” and not “da”. Otherwise, small details. I noticed that you suddenly switched from third person to first person, though! I know storytelling isn’t the priority there, but I can’t fully ignore it; I’m too nitpicky :see_no_evil: I made the corrections based on what you wanted to write and not on what I wanted you to write, so it’s all first person anyway, haha.

#33

Obrigado pelo os meus correcoes!

I sent the e mail as I had written it. He never commented on my bad Portuguese, but asked if Nala was a girl! Now I know why! He never corrects anything. (Typical Portuguese!!) I am glad you understood what I meant overall. That tells me that I can be understood in Portuguese even with my limited usage. The prepositions are just plain wicked! As for the last sentence, yes, I enclosed photos with the email and that is what I meant. I will go back over your corrections and see what I can learn from them.
I use an AMERICAN keyboard, so I cannot type the accents. I have purposely ignored them for that reason. I never type them at any time even if they are provided. I do NOT ignore them in pronunciation, however. Yes, I have trouble with ser and estar. They are impossible right now and I did misspell Fila. It was, of course, not “Fala!”
Thanks for putting up with me. The only reason I wrote was I was motivated to do so, and so it is easier to be “brave” under such circumstances! Necessity is the mother of invention (an American proverb).

If I decide to write more, and I may, I will start a new thread for my sentences so I do not disturb the flow here! Obrigado, e abacos!! Harald

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#34

Muito obrigado…

Re 1st vs 3rd person - When I wrote it originally, I wrote it in 1st person. Then I decided to change it to 3rd; to work other conjugations. So, apparently I missed one… I’ll keep an eye on this as I post additional sections.

#35

It is possible to type the diacriticals if you have a numeric keypad… And use Windows…
Hold down the alt key, and on the numeric keypad type the code for the diacritic as follows. There are some spanish characters in here (I have hispanic colleagues and sometimes need to type their names with the correct characters)

| À | 0192 | Grave | à | 0224 | ¡ | 0161 |
| Á | 0193 | Acute | á | 0225 | ¿ | 0191 |
| Ã | 0195 | Tilde | ã | 0227 | € | 0128 |
| Â | 0194 | Circumflex | â | 0226 | « | 0171 |
| É | 0201 | Acute | é | 0233 | » | 0187 |
| Ê | 0202 | Circumflex | ê | 0234 | Ñ | 0209 |
| Í | 0205 | Acute | í | 0237 | ñ | 0241 |
| Ó | 0211 | Acute | ó | 0243 | — | 8212 |
| Ô | 0212 | Circumflex | ô | 0244 | ‒ | 8210 |
| Õ | 0213 | Tilde | õ | 0245 |
| Ú | 0218 | Acute | ú | 0250 |
| Ç | 0119 | Cedilla | ç | 0231 |

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#36

Thank you for trying to help me. I had no idea. I OPERATE computers but do not understand them.
Obrigado!

#37

[Secção 7]

— Certo, leste e norte. Mas, não são graus de latitude ou longitude. Ê uma outra sistema de posição, chama-se UTM. Mas, os dois números não estão suficiente.
(Certainly, east and north. But they are not degrees of latitude and longitude. It’s another system of positioning, called UTM. But, the two numbers are not sufficient.)

— Porquê? — pergunta Estevão.
(Why?, asked Steven)

— Por que requeres um outro número – uma zona.
(Because you require another number - a zone)

— Zona?
(Zone?)

— Sim. Na Sistema UTM, a terra divida em sessenta zonas. O número da zona e os números do leste e norte faz uma posição única.
(Yes. In the UTM system, earth is divided in 70 zones. The number of the zone and the numbers of east and north make a unique position.)

— Então, são sessenta posições posivel, não é?
(Then there are 70 possible positions, right?)

— Sim, claro. Exactamente.
(Yes, clearly… exactly)

— E assim pode usar as mapas geográfica pesquisá-los?
(And one can use geographic maps to search for them?)

— Sim, é posivel
(Yes, it’s possible)

— Obrigado, eu faço a pesquisar para os.
(Thank you, I’m going to search for them)

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#38

Muito obrigado Stephen!

Este e claro.

Harald

#39

Quick comments:

  • You translated “require” well (requeres), it just doesn’t sound natural. That’s why I changed it to “precisas”.
  • “Marcar uma posição”, “assinalar uma posição”, among others, also sound more natural than “fazer uma posição”.
  • “Sessenta” is actually 60 :slight_smile: “Setenta” is 70.
  • Portuguese nouns can be deceiving when it comes to their gender. “Sistema” and “mapa” both end with As, but they’re masculine.
#40

Mutio obrigardo de novo!

Re UTM, 60 ou 70 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Transverse_Mercator_coordinate_system disse 60 - portando, eu usava-o