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- "I am scared until now."
"I am scared until now."
Translation:Eu estou assustado até agora.
13 Comments
The English original is incorrect. "until now" requires some kind of past tense. "I was" or "I used to be" or "I have been".
The past tense can't be used, because the meaning is "I'm still scared". Actually, I think that's the only way to translate that phrase.
Is this the most common natural way to say ‘I'm still scared’ in Portuguese?
I've found it used here:
And I should say that the only English translation that fits there is ‘I'm still scared.’ (as you said).
Yeah, I think it is. Of course you can say "eu ainda estou assustado", but somehow it doesn't sound as natural as "eu estou assustado até agora". Informally, you would say "eu tô assustado até agora", since the contractions of the verb estar sound way more natural (but only for spoken language).
No, it's not -- the English version doesn't make any sense. I've already commented that this seems to be a translation mistake; PT "até" can be either EN "until" or "even". If the present tense is used and the meaning is that the subjective is still frightened, then "até" translates to "even", i.e. 'I am frightened EVEN now'.
If the phrase "until now" is used in English, it always means that the state is gone/action stopped, and one of the past tenses must be used, e.g. "I have been scared until now" (meaning I just stopped being scared right now).
I'm not sure what you're arguing against, maybe you didn't get what I meant. I was translating from PT ("Eu estou assustada até agora") to EN ("I am scared until now") and pointing out that you can't use the past tense (in this example) like Barbeito suggested because the meaning of the Portuguese phrase is in the present tense, and the solution would've been to use "I am still scared" (because obviously "I am scared until now" is wrong).
I don't think he was arguing against anything, he was probably just responding to the fact that your first statement ("Actually, I think that's the only way to translate that phrase") was a bit misleading. There is more than one way in English to translate this sentence. If you want to be more word-for-word, then "I am scared even now" is perfectly correct English. In fact, it has a slightly higher "scared-factor" than "I am still scared".
It was 10 years ago since my house was haunted, and even now I am scared!
I am still scared of heights since I fell from the roof last year!
Exactly my point, @ChrisGull -- thanks a lot for expressing it better than I did!
@Barbeito's original comment is indeed 100% correct, and in order to rectify the English version of the sentence, you would have to do either of the following:
- Change the verb into one of the past tenses, like @Barbeito suggests, or
- change the translation of PT "até" from 'until' to 'even'.
The 2nd option is the one keeping the semantics/meaning of the original PT sentence.
The translation "I am scared until now" is simply wrong/meaningless English.
:-)
You are indeed correct -- the English text is obviously translated, and the meaning of Portuguese "até" was misunderstood; When the present tense is used in the Portuguese sentence, 'até agora' means "EVEN now", and not "until now".
844
In the reverse question, I answered “I am scared even now.”, and it was accepted. That sentence makes sense. “I am scared until now” doesn’t.
Yes, that's indeed correct! Portuguese "até" can be either English "until" or "even". In the case that you use the present tense in "I am..." the meaning of "até agora" must be "even now".
If you'd say "Eu fiquei assustado até agora", then the meaning of "até agora" would be completely different, and the sentence would mean that I was (have been) scared until now, but not any longer.
:-)
