Pretérito Perfeito 2 Unit, Lesson 5 - Use of até

I’m confused about one of the sentences in Lesson 5 for ‘quer’. The sentence is ‘Ele quis ir até ao parque, mas não pôde’ / ‘He wanted to go to the park, but he couldn’t’. I don’t understand why there is ‘até’ after ‘ir’. Couldn’t you just write this as ‘Ele quis ir ao parque, mas não pôde’ and leave out the ‘até’?

@pauladwg, you can quickly ask for clarification for specific exercises as you go through them, which should be easier than coming to the forum. All you need to do is click on the 3-dot menu to the right of the progress bar and select Report a Problem, before leaving the respective question. It will automatically send us information about that question, and the answer you gave/selected, so you don’t have to copy/paste :kissing_smiling_eyes:

To answer your question, yes, “Até ao” is redundant in this context, but a very idiomatic way of phrasing that sentence.

The phrasing and redundancy of it also depends on the intended meaning. If we simply want to say that he wanted to go to the park, the sentence can always be shortened to “Ele quis ir ao parque, mas não pôde”. However, if we want to specifically say that he wanted to cover the distance up to the park (as some sort of target or finish line), the sentence needs to include the word “até” and won’t be interchangeable with the shorter, less redundant option.

Obrigado Joseph. I will remember that for next time.

The ‘Até ao’ makes sense in the example you gave. So for the question in the exercise, it sounds like either version would be correct.

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