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- "Eu tenho esperado por isto."
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Fonte: Linguee.com:
• esperar = expect:
O professor espera um trabalho acadêmico de todo estudante. (The professor expects a term paper from every student.)
• esperar = wait:
Estamos esperando uma remessa do banco. (We are waiting for a remittance from the bank.)
• esperar = hope:
Todo participante espera vencer o concurso. (Every participant hopes to win the contest.)
Looking further into examples on Linguee.com, whether you translate "esperar" to hope or wait for seems to be entirely dependent on context.
Shouldn't this be I have waited for this? I feel the recommended translation includes a progressive aspect that is not conveyed by the original sentence.
"Pretérito perfeito composto" always expresses repetition and translates to "present perfect progressive".
And the Potuguese sentence too.. it implies an action that started ocurring in the past up to now, so Progressive works the same way, but not translated word for word
It could be that you see "isto" less often because Brazilians tend to ignore the strict difference between "isto" and "isso" and simply use "isso" instead.
The sentence "Eu tenho esperado por este/esta" sounds incomplete, and even if it can be used it is probably better translated as "I have been waiting for this xxx" (where xxx is the thing you have been waiting for: letter, money, parcel etc).
ok thanks, yes upon further thinking, if feels like este/essa needs something to go along with it. In Rio I only really here isso, not isto, you are correct. the difference must be subtle?
The strict difference between "isto" and "isso" is not very subtle. If you ask "O que é isto?" you are talking about something near you. If you ask "O que é isso?" you are talking about something near the person you are talking to. And finally, "O que é aquilo?" refers to something some distance from both of you. It's just that, in speech, Brazilians have simplified the rules and tend to use "isso" (for this), "aquilo" (for that) and don't use "isto" much.
See Danmoller's notes for more discussions on this subject: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6331998
Could this be written without the por or is it included for emphasis? (My dictionary gives esperar VT (aguardar) to wait for; (desejar) to hope for; .... VI to wait; to hope; to expect). Enough to confuse me, anyway!
Duo dictionary has these two sentences:
Eu espero que ele espere por mim.
Eu espero que ele me espere.
Esperar has three definitions. I've read that "esperar" meaning "to expect" (I expect that the match will be close.) usually omits "por". In a reddit discussion, comments indicated "por" was optional when used to say "esperar" = "to wait".
For 'I have been waiting for this'- could you say 'Eu tenho side esperando por isto', or is that weird/wrong?
