"Eu acho que nós já cruzamos a fronteira."
Translation:I think we have already crossed the border.
22 Comments
A bit nasty to ask suddenly for a past time, especially when the pat and the present have the same form .. in a lesson about past. In many other sentences in which present was un-natural the present was to be used.
Correct, but using persent perfect with already is more natural in formal English, since simple past is always tied in the speaker's mind at least to a specific time in the past. Here it would most likely be some unspecified or uncertain time in a period of time before now.
kadhafi: AmE allows the use of the simple past with the adverbs already and just. Your sentence is correct.
Since this is supposed to be present tense exercises, I put "I think we are already crossing the border." Would that be possible? I agree that the verb is more likely to be understood as past, but does it have to be?
nós cruzamos = we cross / we crossed. for me it works better the past by the context. your sentence = acho que já estamos cruzando a fronteira.
That's the key, as in Spanish. When the verb in present and preterit is identical, the subject matter and the já are cues that the meaning is past. As in English we can tell whether "read" is present or past by some time indicator in the sentence.
Why not "We have just crossed the frontier"? Duolingo took exception to "just crossed" not being "have crossed".
It is the same... but atravessar is used much more often... cruzar is used when you mean to cross a line, frontier, a limit, edge.
OK. So, my girlfriend used cruzar when referring to crossing the street and someone warned her that cruzar also had a certain sexual connotation. Is this true? We don't need to discuss the specifics but is that something we should look out for when speaking Portuguese?
We say cruzar a rua, but that's not used very often.... people often say "atravessar a rua".
Cruzar, with sexual connotation, is usually referred to animal procriation. "Vamos cruzar nossos cachorros?"
Lol that sounds funny. That literally translates as "Are/shall we cross our dogs"? XD I'm lucky I use "caminhar" and "passar por" whenever your people ask me for rental cars instead of "cruzar". Anyway, thanks for the contextual knowledge. :)
Could this also mean "I think that we already crossed the line.", as in meaning than physical boundary?
i think one would say "acho que já ultrapassamos o limite" to mean this.
Not totally wrong, but placing the adverb after the auxiliary and before the main verb is the normal positionl. This is a general preference, so we would normally say "I am already losing weight on this new diet" insteadn of "I already am losing weight. . . " Note, "normally" is also placed between the auxiliary and the participle and "also" between . . . etc.
