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- Topic: Portuguese >
- "É um menino."
21 Comments
Technically, "He is a boy" is a correct translation, but by excluding "ele" the phrase becomes contextual. "He" or "She" would have to be implied from previous sentences, but we know we are talking about "He" because of the word "menino" (you dont say "She is a boy").
I think it's a bit unfair to mark that question wrong..perhaps you can just note the distinction upon grading..
626
This is just like Spanish--- the third-person singular verb (¨é¨) basically means ¨it is,¨ ¨he is,¨ AND ¨she is.¨ Unlike in English, the pronoun is unnecessary if we know the gender from the context, as we do here.
TL;DR ¨He is a boy¨ should also be accepted.
Technically you do not need "ele" to say "he is" since the verb conjugation itself already gives you the context (i.e. "sou menina": I am a girl. No need for the "eu"). A student would not imply that the question before was "what is it?" hahaha... Seems funny they haven't changed it. It is, however, comical to imagine someone looking at a child and saying "what is it?, such a strange looking thing!"