"Nós viramos para o professor."
Translation:We have turned to the teacher.
57 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
If "We turn towards the teacher." is correct, then "We turn toward the teacher." should be too. Towards is the British version. http://grammarist.com/spelling/toward-towards/
Especially when you are asked to go from correct English to DL's version of correct English. I will never forget "I used to err". Try saying that on the streets of NY (or anywhere else in the English-speaking world) and see how far you get!
Yes. I keep getting confused. This is one of those things to make a note of and practice. I also get confused with sentar/sentir
Virar = to turn
- Eu viro, você vira, nós viramos, elas viram
Ver = to see
- Eu vejo, você vê, nós vemos, eles veem (or viram past tense)
Vir = to come
- Eu venho, ele vem, nós vimos, eles vêm
Sentar = to sit
- Eu sento, você senta, nós sentamos, eles sentam
Sentir = to feel
- Eu sinto, você sente, nós sentimos, elas sentem
At least the "sentar/sentir" thing you can forgive. As regular verbs both "Eu" forms of the simple present would be "sento" so changing one to "sinto" is a good move. However, someone particularly evil came up with the "ver/vir" conjugations. Look at these:
simple past (preterite): vi, viu, vimos, viram
pluperfect: vira, vira, víramos, viram
subjunctive imperfect: visse, visse, víssemos, vissem
subjunctive future: vir, vir, virmos, virem
That list was found by following the regular conjugation rules for "vir". But, the strange thing is they belong to "ver" instead!
I think that's a English quirk rather than a Portuguese one. The literal translation of "ir" to English is "to go" and the translation of "vir" is "to come". But sometimes in English you use "to come" when you actually mean "to go" (exs: "I can't come to your house tomorrow", "I'll come over", "I'll come by"). In Portuguese it's simpler, "vir" always means coming from somewhere or with someone, while "ir" always means going to somewhere or away from someone. That's why "I can't come tomorrow" can be translated to "Não posso ir amanhã" (the sentence with "vir" is also a correct translation): because you say "come" but you really mean "go".
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I disagree. The difference is that English chooses go/come based on the direction at the time of the action while Portuguese chooses based on the position of the speaker at the time it is said. So in English you can always say "Will you come to my party?" (assuming you will be there!) whereas in Portuguese you'd use vir if you are at home when you say it and ir otherwise.
Do you mean in a figurative sense? It's a stretch because, even without considering whether it translates the Portuguese, "look to" (or "turn to") probably needs a little more context: "We look/turn to the teacher for help" is the classic example.
Having just read the dictionary entry for "virar", I notice that another translation of this sentence could be: "We face(d) the teacher".
It didn't accept my answer, "They turned toward the teacher.". Big difference in, "We turned to the teacher.", meaning that the reason they turned to the teacher was to ask a question to an answer they didn't know. Or they just turned to the teacher. But if they turn toward the teacher is because they want to face him and have eye contact with him, if perhaps, he's moving around the room lecturing. Someone please comment if they understand what I'm saying.
That's annoying, but as others have said, "viramos" is both present and past so Duolingo should accept both interpretations. According to reno300 and zallen1868 answers like "We turn to the teacher" and "We turn towards the teacher" are marked correct alongside the past tense version shown at the top of this discussion.
that should be reported, "viramos" is only related to the verb "virar".
(actually that's not exactly true, there is a tense form of "ver", the more-than-perfect past tense which is "víramos" (with accent on the i). But that tense is so unused (you will basically only find it in poems) that I don't think it should even be taken into account)
\1. DL is not keen on English contractions in preference for possessives.
\2. We are turning is a different tense and introduces an auxiliary verb (are) to the sentence, and the level this exercise is at in the DL lessons is verbs simple Present 2.
http://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-grammar/simple-present-tense/
versus:
http://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-grammar/present-continuous/
\3. There is a difference between turn to and turn for and in this case it certainly makes more sense for the former as the latter seems odd, unless it is a Dance, Modeling University, or maybe Barber college...
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Nós viramos para o professor, we turn to the professor [teacher]
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Nós viramos pelo professor (pelo = por + o), we turn for the professor
I can't give you a good answer on this, but "nós viramos ao professor" doesn't sound right in Portuguese. I think it's because the word "ao" (or, to be correct, the preposition "a", since "ao"="a"+"o") doesn't give a sense of direction: it is more likely to be used when you have to address the teacher directly. For example "nós damos uma maçã ao professor" (we give an apple to the teacher) implies that you actually have to go to the teacher and give him the apple. But "para" expresses that sense of direction here: in this context it means "toward(s)". You turn in the direction of the teacher, so you use "para". Another example is "we talk to the teacher": that would be translated to "nós falamos para o professor" because you don't have to move towards the teacher, you just turn in their direction to talk.
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I think that's right, although I'm not a native speaker. I remember this by thinking that a V looks like turning a corner and a G looks like spinning around.