17 Comments
I believe this should be either "Not one of us is perfect" or "None of us are perfect". The current answer does not sound right.
No, grammatically "None" is singular (though its meaning may be plural) in English like "nenhum" is in Portuguese, so it's "None of us is"
A common misconception is that none must always be treated as singular. The customary support for this view is that none necessarily means "not one" (implying singularity); in fact, "none" is just as likely to imply "not any" (implying plurality). As noted in The American Heritage Dictionary: "the word has been used as both a singular and a plural noun from Old English onward. The plural usage appears in the King James Bible as well as the works of John Dryden and Edmund Burke and is widespread in the works of respectable writers today."
"None/not one" is the singular subject. "Of us" puts each one into a group, the group being a plurality of imperfect people. It acts like a descriptive phrase about the subject which remains singular.
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Nobody of us is perfect. Feels correct for me. Alas Duo doesn't accept it.
Apparently, "nenhum" is also "any". In what context would that meaning be right?
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I'm not sure I understand your question, but nenhum is used in the negative, as a translation of "none" or "not one", while qualquer is used as "any" or "just any" (if it is used at the end of a sentence). Have you seen nenhum used meaning "any"?
Perhaps it can be translated as "not any", but it would have to be a negative since the word nenhum originates from the Portuguese words "nem um", which literally means "not even one". I hope this helps. =)
No, when it's with a preposition it still has the accent mark. This chart should help: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nos#See_also_3
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That is a good question. The é refers to the word "nenhum", and not "nós". If it referred to nós, the word would be "somos".
São would actually be referreing to eles/elas. But the sentence "nenhum deles é perfeito" would still use an é, since it still refers to the word "nenhum".
I don't think so. é is a permanent quality and são is temporary. "Nenhum de nós são perfeito" would probably imply that none of is perfect at the moment, but we could become perfect.
I don't know where you got that, riley, but that is not correct. "São" is just the third person plural of "ser" (and thus simply the plural of é), which indicates a permanent state. "Estar" is used, just like in Spanish, to indicate a temporary quality.
True! I don't know where i got that either. I'll try to wake up properly before trying to think haha! Now I realise why christraeger was asking...
