|
QuestionsForming basic questions is easy enough. Just phrase what you want to say in the same way as you would a statement, but make it obvious that it is a question by the inflection in your voice (or by a question mark if writing). For example…
|
Você trabalha aqui?
|
Do you work here?
|
|
Não comemos agora?
|
Don’t we eat now?
|
Easy eh? You also need to be aware of other ways of asking questions in Portuguese. Merely turning a statement into a question, whilst useful, does not provide a mechanism for every type of question that you might want to ask. For example ‘why do you walk home?’; ‘what are you eating?’ – these types of question make use of interrogative pronouns and adverbs: why; what; where; when; which; who; how. Here are their equivalents in Portuguese:
|
porquê?
|
why? (lit. ‘for what?’ If used as part of a longer question [eg. ‘por que estamos a esperar?’], it is 2 separate words with no circumflex on the ‘e’)
|
| que...? |
what...? (if used on its own, a circumflex is added to the ‘e’)
|
| o que (é)? |
what (is it)?
|
|
onde?
|
where?
|
|
quando?
|
when?
|
|
quanto/quanta?
|
how much?
|
|
qual?
|
which/what? (singular)
|
|
quais?
|
which/what? (plural)
|
|
quem?
|
who?
|
|
como?
|
how?
|
|
quão…?
|
how…? (only used as an adverb – eg. ‘how tall are you?’ or, ‘how tall you are!’)
|
One more that you need to know is ‘será que…’, which can be used to start a question requiring a yes or no answer. Literally, this means ‘it will be that…’, but a better translation might be ‘is it true that…?’. It can also be translated as ‘I wonder if…?’. We don’t really have a direct equivalent in English, but virtually any question that has a yes or no answer could probably be phrased using ‘será que…’. For example:
|
Será que eles vão a pé para casa?
|
Do they walk home? (or: is it so that they walk home?)
|
| Será que comemos agora? |
I wonder if we eat now?
|
You’ll get used to it, trust me.
Powered by AkoComment!
|