I came across these two exercises today:
He didn’t talk about us
Paulo talked about him
The translations provided were
Ele não falou em nós
O Paulo falou dele
Why is “em” used in the first case to express “talk about” while “de” is used in the second case for “talk about”?
Peter
Joseph
2
@pwsteele, it’s because the verb falar can take different prepositions in Portuguese (mostly interchangeably), so there’s not one fixed way to translate “talk about”. Here’s a more detailed explanation: Falar de ou falar em? - Portuguese Questions - Practice Portuguese