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- "Você não coloca açúcar?"
22 Comments
It would be more correct English to say - 'You don't take sugar?' or 'Don't you take sugar?'
in britain or the northeastern u.s., perhaps one would use 'take' instead of 'put'. in south texas, one would normally use 'put', and it would be phrased "you don't put sugar?".
I don't know that that's necessarily true in Texas. I've never had someone say "You don't put sugar?" maybe "you don't add sugar?". Seems like an odd sentence to me.
That's probably because of word order. As a question, usually the verb comes first:
Don't you put sugar? (accepted)
In British English . . . we do not say, 'Don't you put sugar?' Unless the sentence is much longer - for example, 'Don't you put sugar in the cake mix?' But in the context of this short sentence, we say 'Don't you take sugar?' or 'You don't take sugar?' Or 'Don't you have sugar?', or 'You don't have sugar?' Even though in this example, the PT verb 'to put' is used, in British English, the equivalent in this conext is 'to take'.
But you mean "take" like you don't "take" sugar with your tea. But I think this sentence means that you don't put sugar in your tea :)
If it helps at all, it doesn't make sense in Midwestern U.S. English, either.
Think of the sentence this way. You are surprised that the person doesn't put sugar in his/her coffee.
Is "colocar" the only acceptable verb in this case? Would "querer" or "usar" be acceptable?
Once again, the drop down choices for coloca don't provide the "correct" answer. Please fix this.
Asking someone if they "put sugar" is completely normal and acceptable in contextual circumstances. Example: "There's no added sweeteners in this cake." "Really? You don't put any sugar?"
Notice the disagreement between "there's" and "sweeteners" as well. Yet another completely normal dimension of everyday speech.
I can accept that "put sugar" is incorrect, but then the options "use" and "take" should appear as possible translations of the verb. I can't know what word to use if the only translation given doesn't make sense in the sentence
this is no good. in english, "put" is used in this sense with an object and a prepositional phrase. you don't just put sugar, you put sugar somewhere or in something or on something, "i put sugar in my coffee." a sailor can be put to sea, a baby can be put to bed, the dishes can be put away, but you don't say "yes, i put sugar" that is incomplete and doesn't mean anything.
