- Forum >
- Topic: Portuguese >
- "If we gave you a present, wo…
"If we gave you a present, would you be happy?"
Translation:Se déssemos um presente para você, você ficaria feliz?
35 Comments
I omitted the second você and got it wrong, but surely, it is implied. Ficaria can’t relate to the ‘we’ in the first part of the sentence, I’m sure.
Yes, but the issue is that you know what the sentence is supposed to mean. It is after all not repeating a subject pronoun. The você is an object pronoun. We don't know the context. Without the você, the sentence could also mean would he or she be happy. Theoretically it could also be would I be happy, although that is a harder one to build context for as it is a strange question to ask someone else. But we constantly build sentences with different subject pronouns in them that look unusual except if you were part of the conversation which got to that point.
What's wrong with: "Se nos dessemos um presente para voce, ficaria feliz?" ?
I think because here the "be" is kind of a "become/get", something that happens in the moment when the present is given.
If I had a car, I would be happy = se eu tivesse um carro, eu estaria feliz. // He the "be" is not close to "become/get".
If my girlfriend returned, I would be happy = Se minha namorada voltasse, eu ficaria feliz" // Here "be" is closer to "become/get"
I tried using 'a gente' and put 'Se a gente te desse um presente, você estaria feliz?'. It was marked wrong but the correct answer was given as 'Se a gente te desse um presente, você seria feliz?', which confused me because I thought happiness was a temporary state.
That's because você estaria feliz? sounds like you are asking if the person would be happy at a given moment - in this case, the moment you give them a gift. But it doesn't mean "happy at that moment because they're getting a gift", it just means "happy at that moment, regardless of the gift" - the gifting dictates the moment, not the source/reason for feeling/happiness. It's like asking them if they would be home (você estaria em casa?) - the gifting (or being home) plays no part in the way they feel (the way they are, the way "eles estão").
Does that make sense?
And that isn't actually wrong, it just sounds really weird. Because you're not even asking if they will be happy to get a gift - you're just asking if they think they would be happy at a certain moment in time - it just so happens that the moment, in this case, is a gifting moment, which then makes the whole thing sound really weird. One would assume you'd be more interested in their feelings regarding the gift.
Like I said, if you were to ask Você estaria em casa?, it doesn't sound weird at all, because while gifting involves feelings, being home doesn't. Se quiséssemos visitar você, você estaria em casa? = If we wanted to visit you, would you be home?
Am I of any help? heheheeh Feel free to ask further if you still have doubts! C:
I also used estar, but I was corrected with ficar. I read your post and I am beginning to understand a little more about ser/estar. Being fluent in Spanish is something I am finding as much a disadvantage as an advantage for me in Portuguese. I actually have seen estar very little in this course. I have seen ficar a lot where my Spanish logic tells me that estar should be. Can you help me effectively place ficar in this scheme of being with ser and estar?
Se dermos um presente para você, você ficaria feliz? Not accepted.??
What is dermos? I don't think it means anything in Portuguese, but it's certainly not right here.
My attempt was "se nós você dessemos um presente, você ficaria feliz?" but it was not accepted, can anyone explain why please?
You can't use "você" before verbs as an object pronoun:
- se nós te/lhe déssemos.
- se nós déssemos para você.
Seria is also correct, but wouldnt make much sense in this sentence...
se nós dessemos um presente para ti, tu ficarias feliz - tell me what is wrong in sted of mark it as wrong. And I do not want to use voce.
It sounds like this may not be the course for you. Duo never explains what you did wrong, and the more they try to design a program to give you a "reason" the more they seem to mess up. But in these discussions there generally are people willing to help you understand, although they are just other users. But not wanting to use você, that's probably going to frustrate you as well. Duo is teaching Brazilian Portuguese, and in much of Brazil they only use você. Tu seems to be going the way of thou there. In the other romance languages Duo focuses more on tú, but it based on current usage in the regions covered.
I used "uma prenda" but it was marked wrong. Is this just used in EP?
What is the difference se déssemos and se demos. Marked wrong for se demos. ?
The se here is not the reflexive se, it's the word if. Demos is the preterite form. Déssemos is the past subjunctive. This is one of those sentences with a conditional clause and a past subjunctive clause where the past subjunctive clause states the condition that would make the conditional clause true. I probably lost you there, but there are plenty of English examples of this that will help. If I ate chocolate, I would get sick. You wouldn't leave me if you loved me. If it were cheaper, I would buy this car. The formula is the same, and either clause can come first without changing the meaning. The if clause is actually subjunctive in English, but the subjunctive is mostly hidden in English. Only my last example is obviously subjunctive in English.
