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- "O homem está a espera da car…
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Interesting. Should that really be está à espera? Couldn't you also say (with a change of meaning from "waits" to "is waiting") está a esperar and está esperando?
Oh, I've just seen Paulo's other discussion about this topic here: http://www.duolingo.com/comment/602631. Another accepted translation for this sentence is "The man is waiting for the letter" so perhaps "à" is more appropriate for that version.
So, should I report an error next time I get this sentence? I wouldn't want to learn bad habits? :-)
About está a esperar, almost every source I've looked at has mentioned that this construction is common in Portugal but has died out in Brazil, so I confidently said that in a recent discussion and I was told I was wrong: http://www.duolingo.com/comment/155187
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If this is the case, then it should be "à" rather than "a," which is currently translated as "the." I wondered whether it might mean that he was THE addressee.
Since we are dealing with medical issues here, should "waiting for the card" (such as medial history card) not be acceptable, since we see the man sitting in a waiting room, waiting for medical attention. He should then rather be waiting for a card (which is shown in the hints as an option) rather than for a letter?
I'm not saying you're wrong to expect that to work (because I'm not a native speaker), but I suspect most things that are called a card in English would be called a "cartão" in Portuguese.
The exception in the hints applies to a card (as in a deck of playing cards) which is indeed a "carta", but we would probably translate that as "The man waits for the playing card" to be quite clear what we mean, nevertheless, plain "card" is a possibility (even though it doesn't have a link with medicine either).