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- "The chicken burns in the oveā¦
"The chicken burns in the oven."
Translation:O frango queima no forno.
October 6, 2013
7 Comments
I'm a little confused by the subject-verb here. How would I differentiate between the chicken being burned (which is what's happening here) versus something burning something else? I feel like a se is necessary here. If I were to flip it and say "O forno queima o frango", the oven is doing the burning, right?
MarkBennett6
1235
The English verb is ambiguous. With a direct object (the chicken burns the hen house) the chicken is doing something. Without a direct object - used intransitively - something is acting on the chicken, even though "chicken" is the subject. This is a type of intranstive verb called an unaccusative verb.