"Eles não tocam em nós."
Translation:They do not touch us.
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"Eles não tocam na gente" is more common. Both "tocar" and "tocar em" are translations for "to touch".
Thank you Paulenrique for another erudite explanation. Your replies are the clearest and most understandable of them all. Are you as cool in person as you look in the photograph?
Well, I hope I am cool in person =)
Probably, but I have this vision of all of us here as being really nerdy. :D
After all, we spend hours per week (even per day) on the internet, much of it devoted to this site, picking apart languages. =)
But personally, I have embraced my inner nerd when I finally came out as being a Star Trek and Doctor Who fan. I tell you, confident nerds have way more fun. :)
Hahahaha...
Yeah, I spend at least 10 hours in front of my PC every day due to work and other stuff... After that, I read =P I love reading and learning new things ♥
I don't think I am a nerd though... Just someone who tries to learn new things... But I can tell you I love psychology and learn how human brain works ♥
"Eles não nos tocam". Without accent in "nos", because it's a different pronoun, a "pronome oblíquo átono" (unstressed oblique pronoun), while "nós", with acute accent, is a "pronome reto" (straight pronoun), that is used as subject in a sentence
This accent is common in the some states in Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. When the last syllable of a word ends in a stressed os or oz they pronounce it like ois, or in Rio, oish. Nós becomes nois or noish, após becomes apois or apoish, etc. They do the same with a stressed as in the end, so they pronounce gás like gais or gaish. I always think it's strange why they do that, It never made sense to me why they say "um sofá, dois 'sofais'" haha. In most of Brazil it is pronounced the "normal" way, nós is like "naws".
ah, so the "sh" ending is only common around Rio? I had this preconception of Portuguese language having these "sh" pronounciations, but on Duolingo I realized it's pronounced "s" and I was confused...
There may be a few other places in Brazil where people turn the s at the end into a "sh" sound, but I don't know of any other than Rio. Also, the "sh" sound is typical all throughout Portugal.
Could this also be translated "They are not touching us"? I realize there's a subtle difference: "They are not touching us" - at this moment in time, there is no physical contact between them and us. "They do not touch us" - they do not and will never have physical contact with us. Thank you.
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This difference occurs in Portuguese as well: "eles não tocam em nós" vs "eles não estão tocando em nós."
It doesn't have this meaning. The translation would be "Eles não tocam para (or por) nós"
Every day i trust this app less and less. Too many times the hints they provide cause wrong answers.
Because generally (though not always... at least in Brazil), tocar without the preposition means, "to play" (an instrument for instance) rather than, "to touch" (as in this Duo sentence).
https://www.linguee.com/portuguese-english/translation/tocar.html
Except for heart (coração) which can actually swing either way: touch my heart, play my heart:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heartstrings
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/heartstrings
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There are two forms of object pronouns in Portuguese. Which of them should be used depends on whether the pronoun is preceded or not by a preposition.
If the object were "eu", this difference would be clearer:
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Eles não tocam em mim.
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Eles não me tocam.
For "nós", the object pronoun corresponding to "mim" happens to be also "nós". Hence:
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Eles não tocam em nós.
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Eles não nos tocam.
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I believe nos is a contraction for in the, followed by a plural masculine noun. Nós means us or we.
Tocar translates to play when it means to play a musical instrument. To play with something or someone is "brincar"
Why on earth is they dont touch us not accepted it means the exact same thing and isnt even changing the words around
Is "They are not touching us" incorrect for "Eles não tocam em nós"? It wasn't accepted.
Eles/Elas não estão tocando em nós (BR PT: Brazil)
Eles/Elas não estão a tocar em nós (EU PT: Europe, Asia, Africa)
when is this used ? can someone give me some context ? like they can't touch us, as a superiority thing ?
Essa frase está muito mal formulada. O correto seria Eles não nos tocam.
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Interesting, I wonder when the prep. 'em' is used/demanded and when it is not. I have not yet found any rule.
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What is wrong with "They do not touch on us."? Context might be: "They are (verbally) beating everybody up, but they don't touch on us." There's not enough freedom on this site to explore nuances.
Hi @Solarrai! I'm rephrasing an earlier answer by @Paulenrique. If the object is after the verb, "tocar" requires the addition "em" (like you never use a form of "gostar" without "de"). If you choose the alternate form of putting the object before the verb, you can drop the preposition: "Eles nos tocam."
