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- Topic: Portuguese >
- "Nós perdemos o almoço."
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(1) Unless it is a specific lunch, no need for the article "the" in the English translation.
(2) The Portuguese sentence is grammatically correct. Since the simple present in Portuguese can be translated as both simple present and present continuous, the English translation should reflect what would be most natural for English speakers: the present continuous. We are missing lunch.
Hmm, is dia an exception? I thought there were a few words that had the j sound not at the end. Granted, not because of stress.
Ah, according to http://www.omniglot.com/writing/portuguese.htm it's due to it having an 'i', while "de" is pronounced "d" unless it's at the end. Depending on region (as there are apparently some who don't do this).
Early exercises necessarily leave out context. Consider these contexts:
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We get caught up reading these comments and suddenly we become aware: We are missing lunch.
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For weeks we have eaten meals only before sunrise or after sundown. We miss lunch.
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We are stuck in traffic on the way to a convention. We miss the lunch. (Or... We are missing the lunch.)
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Every year we used to have a series of meals celebrating the New Year. We miss the lunch.
I think all of these be translated by "Nós perdemos o almoço." Am I wrong?
I didn't have a problem so much with the progressive -- we are missing lunch.
Actually, my problem was more with "We miss lunch" and "We miss THE lunch."
<h1>1 is okay for me as it is progressive and doesn't have the determiner the.</h1>I accept #2 in your context, but only because "miss" seems to have a different meaning for me than I think is intended by the Portuguese. The meaning of "miss" is different in "I missed my dog" and "I missed my train." In the first case I was sorry not to be with my dog, while in the second sentence I didn't catch the train. In #2 above I would take it as I feel bad that I am sorry not able to eat lunch, rather than that there was a lunch that I was not able to make. I don't think that meaning of "miss" translates to "perder," although I could be wrong.
<h1>3 I can't imagine "We miss the lunch" being used in normal conversational speech -- okay for literary use when you are using the dramatic present tense to convey something in the past.</h1> <h1>4. Mmm. I would have a problem with the "the" in that context, unless you said something like, "We always miss the lunch," where always specifies this as a habitual occurrence.</h1>But that's just true for my dialect. Doesn't make me the last word in universal English usage. Thanks for bringing up these points! A lingot from me for caring enough to do so!
The whole section on present verbs seems to take no account of it's English equivalent and only the present simple response seems to be accepted, however, present simple in English is used for scheduled or timetabled events, things that are always true and stative verbs using can, such as I can smell smoke. We usually use present continuous to describe things happening in the present.
^ True, that does seem to be the case in the lessons so far. I said it makes sense to me (in English) to continuously miss lunch in the present, because a person could be preoccupied with doing something else.
For example, if I were stuck in detention during lunch I would say at present "I'm missing lunch" instead of the simple present "I miss lunch". Therefore, that's what has me baffled about the Portuguese to English translation not accepting "missing" as well.
I simply want to know how to say "We're missing lunch" if it isn't "Nós perdemos o almoço". Otherwise, I wish it was accepted. :/
It's not nonsensical actually. If anything, it is just a sentence with limited usage/application. However, it would make perfect sense if someone were talking about missing a lunch special at restaurant that stopped serving lunch at a certain time. In most cases it would be past tense, but in explaining a story and using casual English, someone could definitely say, "We miss the lunch."
Even in the situation you provided, the sentence is awfully awkward. I don't think it works at all frankly. But, Duolingo is free and is only a sort of supplement so I can tolerate this kind of thing.
There are quite a few sentences that have extremely "limited usage/application" however. If anyone from Duolingo is interested in improving this system, that would easily be one area.