"Eu gostaria que alguém me dissesse o que comer."
Translation:I would like someone to tell me what to eat.
19 Comments
Do you mean you would be happy with replacing "I would like it if" with "I wish"? That produces the odd translation: "I wish someone told me what to eat" (it sounds better with "had told" but I'm not sure that works as a translation).
My guess at what the original sentence means is "I'd like someone to tell me what to eat" and with "I wish" it could be "I wish someone would tell me what to eat". How do those sound to you?
Your translations are very good.
For "I wish someone had told me", I'd say "eu gostaria que alguém tivesse me dito"
As a simple English sentence without translation concerns, would you say that "I wish someone told me" should be avoided?
You can't say: "I wish someone told me...". That involves action, and the subjunctive after "wish" involves "states of being" for the present, not action verbs.
• I wish someone would tell me (wish for an unlikely change in the future - irrealis).
• I wish someone had told me (regret about a past unrealized event)
• I wish that someone knew what I should eat. (subjunctive - a "state of being" in the present)
• I wish that it weren't so cold out now. (subjunctive - a "state of being" in the present)
I don't speak French so I can say "I wish I spoke French". Nobody tells me bedtime stories so I can say "I wish someone told me bedtime stories".
I think "told" here is the English past subjunctive and the phrase is grammatical so there is no need to avoid it, however it sounds odd (not wrong) to me, and as I did in my example above, I'd replace "told" with "would tell" (maybe "could tell" is better). I'm sure Elaine (emeyr) will scold me when she finds out. :-)
Davu: Your words:
"I would like it if" with "I wish"? That produces the odd translation: "I wish someone told me what to eat" (it sounds better with "had told" or "would tell".
I think that the original sentence means "I'd like someone to tell me what to eat". By using "I wish", the sentence goes from being indicative to subjunctive (irealis): "I wish someone would tell me what to eat".
Both "had told" and "would tell" are two examples of the subjunctive, representing an unrealized past event and an unlikely future action.
Your words:
"I see "someone tells me bedtime stories" as an attainable situation in the present. Crucially, I believe this situation can exist even when nobody is actually telling me a story."
If it's attainable, you can say: "I hope that someone will read me a bedtime story".
However, by saying "I wish", you are indicating that it is unlikely to happen.
"I wish I knew someone who would read bedtime stories to me at night." (you don't know any one). "Knew" is a subjunctive form.
Thank you. I think I understand. With wishes I should use "would tell" to talk about the future and the past perfect "had told" to talk about the past. That leaves wishes about the present which, in principle, needs the past tense (subjunctive) "told".
You are clearly unhappy with "I wish someone told me bedtime stories" even if it was spoken by someone who believed that a life devoid of storytelling is very likely. So giving the poor thing as much leeway as possible what finally decides that it is simply nonsense?
Anyway, we should agree on the best translation of the Portuguese sentence, and the winner is ...
Agreed.
Eu gostaria que alguém me dissesse o que comer = I wish someone would tell me what to eat.
Now that's a "sentence" that can't be right.....
(PS: dar seu voto, or simply votar)
Ouch, those carrier pigeons didn't find the owl in time. (Fixed, sorry for having completely forgotten this one)
Reading it all again, these two are fine answers:
- I would like someone to tell me what to eat
- I wish someone would tell me what to eat
Before voting....is this possible: "I would like that someone told me what to eat" ? (please pardon a non native speaker....)
I don't know much about grammar (unlike others here) but I can tell you as a native speaker that your translation doesn't work in English.
