"Tem dinheiro nestas calças."

Translation: There is money in these pants.

[melesana]

How is "You have money in these pants" incorrect? How do you say that? Is "tem" a generic "there is", like hay or il y a or es gibt?

[Paulenrique]

Yep.. the correct is "há" (both singular and plural), but hardly ever you will hear "há leite na geladeira?", but "tem leite na geladeira?". Its wrong, but the more than a half people say.... it means "hay" / "il y a".

[melesana]

Thank you! That explains it. Does the "have" necessarily refer to the pants, rather than their owner?

[Paulenrique]

As there's no context, it seems to be general (there to be - haver). If it would be related to a specific owner, the best thing would be to include the subject (ele tem dinheiro nestas calças - he has money in these pants)

[Paulenrique]

http://www.duolingo.com/#/comment/550345

[melesana]

Perfect! I'm learning the tricks slowly. Thanks.

[Paulenrique]

;)hope you get them little by little :)

[josiebla]

Hey melesana, i'm native german speaker and just so you know: nobody ever says 'es gibt' in this context. you would say sonething like 'da ist geld in dieser hose' or something like that ;)

[gpriddy]

In other words, if the subject is not included with "Tem" then it must be assumed to be like hay / il y a ?

[Paulenrique]

Not really. For example: "tá vendo aquela moça?" / (do you that woman?) / "sim, tô vendo" (yeah, i do) / "tem dinheiro.... (she has (much) money). So, as we have a context, we know it is referred to the 3rd person. So, we know that through the context.... as there was none on this sentence we assume it's the verb haver

[Afoita]

I wrote "have money in these pants" Why is that incorrect?

[Paulenrique]

In english you can't use "have" in the sense of existance.

[Afoita]

It's challenging to know what the translation is. Like, for example. a word for word translation might be "have you not like those /female shoes" My brain freezes just imagining what that would translate into in English! Thanks for your help--

[deactivated user]

But, shouldn't it be tem dinheiro nesta calça?