"O ventilador é útil em dezembro."

Translation: The fan is useful in December.

[lesliewilman]

Very hard to hear this if you live well up in the northern hemisphere!

[jungerstein]

Here I suddenly realize that the course teaches Brasilian Portuguese.

[Arturo639756]

That was made clear from the beginning though.

[Paulenrique]

=)

[machtibor]

Oh, of course! :) I thought this was one of the Duolingo's funny sentences and it actually makes sense.

[uchual]

Well, actually ceiling fans are useful to distribute heat more evenly in the winter (spinning counter-clockwise) , especially if you have central or radiating heating in your home.

[Guibortot]

In Brazil, December is one of the hottest months of the year. Fans are indeed very useful for us to not celebrate the Christmas all wet in sweat!

[KTKee-EnglishEng]

The ventilator is useful in December. Wrong?

[mhorne]

They look similar but have different meanings. As far as I'm aware, ventilator in English is something that assists breathing, or assists airflow in/out of a building/room. In this case it just translates to fan.

[BrianL51]

This, and the comments, remind me of two sci-fi space travellers one of whom says to the other: "Just think, it's Winter back on Earth"...

[pigu006]

why i need a fan in winter?

[pietvo]

To blow the hot summer air from Brazil to your home.

[Sincaxi]

In Brazil, December is a summer month.

[JasonPerlman]

And also in Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique!

[DominicMellor]

I didn't know they spoke Portuguese there! Is it more like Brazilian or European Portuguese?

[Scutigera]

It is EP PT in all places outside of Brazil. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_Portuguese_is_an_official_language

Which makes sense since it was the Portuguese going from place to place in the conquering "age of discovery" days (including Brazil). =]

Well, and then there is the Portuguese diaspora that makes up a third of Luxembourg, a significant part of Andorra, and makes Paris the city with the second highest population of Portuguese people (behind Lisboa). There are also significant populations of Portuguese in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver, London, Germany, The Netherlands, and in Finland among others.

[JasonPerlman]

I don't know enough about the difference to be able to say -- I guess you'll have to go and find out!

[ruca2017]

...and Timor.

[Jan702541]

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ventilator
Using ventilator instead of fan is correct.

[ElvisLearner]

Reported wrong pronouncing of the word "útil" -> there's a clear stress on the letter "ú", so it must be pronounced accordingly