- Forum >
- Topic: Portuguese >
- "Eu os amo muito."
27 Comments
Nope.
I love you (plural) a lot = Eu amo muito vocês
Would be used when you directly talks with a group, like some friends, or your parents, w/e.
I love them a lot = Eu os amo muito
Would be used in cases you are talking with someone about other people.
Ex: You are talking with your parents, you will use "you (plural)" , you are talking with a friend about your parents , you will use "them".
Can you really say "Nope" so categorically?
What I think you are saying is that the pronouns "os/as" can only refer to the third person plural forms "eles/elas". But as far as I can see that's not true in general because "vocês", "os senhores" and "as senhoras" (all meaning "you") are also third person plural forms. For example, you would probably have no difficulty in accepting "Foi um prazer em conhecê-los" as a translation for "It was a pleasure to meet you (plural)".
As with most translations, context is very important and if you were to say "Eu os amo muito" to a group of friends, they would not ask you who you're talking about, they would just think you were being overly formal, wouldn't they?
Yeah, sorry, my example was bad.
And yeah, grammatically speaking you are completely correct. I was not trying to say that "os / as" can only be used with "eles / elas" Just in this especific case does not sound normal using the way that bohle said.
But to be honest, i never heard someone saying "Eu os amo muito" when they are talking directly with those people, it is not wrong, and they will understand after a few seconds.
So, when i see a doubt like this here i try to correct it to the most used , like , i consider that the person wants to interact with people from that country that she is learning the language, and we some times do not talk like this, "overly formal".
Many times i say things that are understandable and correct in other languages, but is not normal, so i like when they say it to me, makes the comunication easier.
Sometimes is even more common talking using a wrong grammar.
But thanks for what you said , makes it more complete.
Thank you for taking the time to clear that up. It's simply that the grammar allows for meanings that nobody really uses. Another example is the use of the already quite formal sounding "lhe/lhes" as indirect pronouns for all third person types including the equivalents of "you", but the "you" version is avoided as far as I can see.
2130
In this case would " eu lhes amo muito" be correct too? What language level are we talking about here ( formal, informal, normal..)?