23 Comments
It is grammatically correct. And it makes sense in a very specific scenario. But in most cases, when saying this, the speaker means you, not a third party. Remember that "você" is conjugated like "ele", the 3rd person singular, hence the confusion.
Thank you. Your answer was really useful, it helped me a lot - i wanted to ask the same question... :)
While I appreciate Tiagos involvement a lot, I still did not get it 100% ;). .. there are still 2 options open 1) there is ANOTHER MUCH MORE PREVALENT phrase for "Do you understand what I told her/him" or 2) the another phrase is not MUCH MORE frequent
That's alright Libor. Le me clarify: -"lhe" can mean "to you" or "to him"; - although you could theoretically say to another person "Do you understand what I tell him?", that's highly unlikely; you probably either ask "Do YOU understand what I tell YOU" or "Does HE understand what I tell HIM".
So no, there's only one way to say "Do you understand what I tell him" and there are actually 2 ways to say "Do you understand what I tell you", but I won't risk confusing you again, and you shouldn't bother anyway, since that second way is only used in Portugal and in certain regions of Brazil (the 2nd person singular).
if you still have questions, fire away! :-)
Well I will be blatant here: How do you say: 'Do you understand what I told her?' Note: I do think it is MUCH more frequent to ask ' Do you understand what I told him?' than' Does he understand what I tell him' for the mere reason that in the latter case you ask for making assumption about someone else, which is silly unless you ask an interpreter which is a real niche of communication.
"Do you understand what I tell her" is still "Você entende o que eu lhe digo?" Yes, you're right, that is more probable. I shouldn't have given "Does HE understand what I tell HIM" as an example. But that isn't a possible translation here. The fact of the matter is that the expected translation is "Do you understand what I tell you" because it is much more probable and therefore makes more sense.
I realize this is a really old comment, but I'll try to answer your questions.
That's not about frequency, we can say whatever we want, right? I think that's because the sentence starts with "você" (you), so that's the context we need to know, in this case. If it were just "eu lhe digo", it could be you/him/her, because there is no context.
"Do you understand what I tell him?" sounds weird to me, Idk if that's correct; in that case, I would say: do you understand what I'm telling him? Same way in portuguese: você entende o que eu estou dizendo a ele? because it's weird/wrong to say "você entende o que eu digo a ele?"
Do you understand what I told him/her? = Você entende o que eu disse a ele/ela?
I just commented bellow that you shouldn't be worry about lhe. I'm Brazilian and I never use it, most people don't. Normally, we would just say: (você) entende o que (eu) digo? or: "(você) entende o que (eu) estou dizendo/falando?".
I hope that helps you and/or someone with the same doubts ^^
Because you use "Você" when talking to another person, but you conjugate it like it's the 3rd person singular.
I've actually never heard someone saying something using lhe, you shouldn't be worry about that.
normally, we would just say: (você) entende o que (eu) digo? or even better:
"(você) entende o que (eu) estou dizendo/falando?".
you can drop the words between ().
I think this entire section needs more explanation, without the comments, it's impossible, for me at least.
The word "lhe" is an indirect object that can mean either "to him", "to her", or "to you". If not clarified, the meaning is taken from the context of the sentence. Since this sentence already references "você", we infer that "lhe" here means "to you". As I understand it, most Brazilians use "lhe" infrequently when speaking and would say "você entende o que eu digo você" to avoid confusion. Would a native Brazilian speaker of Portuguese please confirm?
Now I see. I thought it was a capital i...and not a lowercase l. Blonde moment. :)
I risk to say using "lhe" for second person is wrong. Besides many Brazilians use it. (I'm really not sure this time)
Você takes 3rd person singular conjugation, that's why lhe is used here. :P
