"O homem está a espera da carta."
Translation:The man waits for the letter.
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I don't really understand this grammar structure here. Why is it not 'o homem espera da/para a carta?
We have three ways to say that: o homem espera a carta, o homem espera pela carta, o homem está à espera da carta"
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.
Yes, you can say "está esperando". "Está a esperar" hmmm just in Portugal. Anyway "estar à espera de" sounds more poetic =) ohh yes, you have to use the accent ;)
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
The first time I saw "estar+a+infinitive" was when my friend was teaching me about the time he lived in Portugal. I've never seen it in Portuguese and that's something I've never heard of a Brazilian
There is a version of this exact question in which the 'a' is an 'à'. Shouldn't this question be deleted then, Paulenrique?
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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.
It's tenuous, but if you are waiting for medical results from a test this could fit... clutching at straws once more.
it is just like "the man is at the wait of the letter" so "the man waits for the letter", or you even can say "the man is waiting for the letter"
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).