Oi, meu nome é Paloma. Hi everybody! I’m Paloma. |
Welcome to PortuguesePod101.com’s “Português em Três Minutos”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Portuguese. |
In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Where" questions in Portuguese. |
This time, we’re going to ask questions with the interrogative word "When?" |
Let’s go! Vamos lá! |
Imagine you want to ask when your roommate is coming back home. You will ask him Quando você vai voltar para casa? |
[slowly] Quando você vai voltar para casa? |
So let’s break down this answer. |
First we had... |
Quando, which is the basic translation of "When" in Portuguese. |
Then Você, which is "you". |
Vai voltar means "will come back” |
And finally para casa which is "home." |
So, altogether it is Quando você vai voltar para casa? |
"When will you come back home?" |
So in Portuguese, "When" is generally translated as the word Quando. For example, if you want to ask "When were you born?" you’d say Quando você nasceu? |
Like in English, the interrogative word is placed in the 1st position, but the order of the verb and the subject changes. |
So let’s have a look at another example... |
How can you say "When did you arrive?" |
It’s really simple since it’s exactly the same pattern, Quando você chegou? |
First we have Quando, which is "When" |
Você is "you" |
And finally chegou, which is the past form of the verb chegar, "to arrive." |
Have you noticed any differences between the sentences Quando você vai voltar para casa? and Quando você chegou? |
The first one is talking about a future action – "When are you coming back home?" Whereas the 2nd one is referring to the past "When did you arrive?" |
The conclusion is that you can use the interrogative word Quando to talk about any moment, whether past or present. |
If you want to ask a question about duration as in "Since when have you been teacher?" Then you will have to say Desde quando você é professor? |
Here too, it’s exactly the same as in English, because "since" is Desde. So Desde quando means "Since when?" |
[slow] Desde quando você é professor? |
Let’s see how to ask "Until when?" in Portuguese. It’s very easy as you can translate it directly. It becomes Até quando? |
So for example, if you want to ask a friend " " It will be Até quando você vai ficar aqui? |
[slow]Até quando você vai ficar aqui? |
But of course there are other ways to ask about time. You can even be more specific by asking about the year, the date, or the hour. |
For example, you can ask- |
- "What year Which year did you start working?" will be |
Em qual ano você começou a trabalhar? |
- "Which day is better for you?" will be |
Qual dia é melhor para você? |
Now it’s time for Paloma’s Points. |
To ask how long an action has been taking place in Portuguese, we could say Desde quando, but there is another very simple way to do it! |
You just have to use the pattern Faz quanto tempo que? As in Faz quanto tempo que você está esperando? That is "How long have you been waiting?" |
Ok, so in this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the interrogative Portuguese word for "When", Quando, but also its different variations. |
Next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions with "Who". Do you know how to do this in Portuguese? |
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Português em Três Minutos lesson. |
Até mais! |
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