"There had been no casualties, fortunately."
Translation:Não tinha havido baixas, felizmente.
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The sentence was "There had been no casualties, fortunately." And I wrote, "Não tinha havido feridos, felizmente."
Não houve vítimas, felizmente. Why can't I just say this? My answer was: Não tinha havido vítimas, felizmente. Yes, it was accepted. I just want to know the difference.
Não houve=There weren't, there haven't been
Não havia tido=There hadn't been
And by the way, "baixas" is not a word that most people, mainly young ones would understand in this context. "Vítimas" is way much better and easier to understand.
If you want to be more precise, "casualties" in the sense of "people who got hurt" is "feridos" and in the sense of "people who have been killed" it is "mortos".
There is often misunderstanding in English as to whether "casualty" refers only to those who died. I don't think it always does, but some do.
Yeah this is an annoying misunderstanding. Casualties really can't mean just deaths, it means killed and wounded otherwise you'd say how many dead/killed/exterminated/. In a military setting it means specifically someone that can no longer fight. That can be for many reasons on top of the rather obvious one of being dead, it could mean sickness, being wounded, captured, run away...etc
You're right, casualties don't need to be dead, nor do victims, in spite of the way news is often reported.
Não tinha havido baixas, felizmente.
Why isn't "tinham" used as we are talking about "baixas"?
The verb "there to be" is impersonal, and has no plural in Portuguese:
- não haverá baixas
- não houve baixas
- não terá havido baixas
- não tinha havido baixas.
I don't know whether the prompts are wrong or just confusing....certainly the use of parentheses is wrong.
Larousse doesn't even have "death" as one of the meanings for "baixa". The closest thing listed is "loss". And I agree with the comment below that "death" is not synonymous with "casualty". The term can include nonlethal injuries.
Nao tinha andado baixas felizmente. In a previous exercise, it used "andado" as a way to say "been." Can someone please clarfiy. Thanks! 4.17.20
Not here, unfortunately. "Andado" to mean "been" is usually used in sentences like "Como você tem andado?" "How have you been?" "Ele tem andado triste" "He's been sad" etc. It wouldn't work here.