Dear Ms. Lover,
I read your amusing piece in the Algarve Resident of May 3, ‘Three Little Words That Mean So Much’, with a mix of laughter and compassion.
Portuguese is certainly not easy, and there are more than your Three Little Rodents lurking around more sophisticated conversations and text than is the case with interpreting shop signs or restaurateurs’ customer interactions.
Congratulations on your interpretation of the three mice, though. Don‘t despair! You have figured out most of it.
If this is of any help to you: Já não essentially means ‘not any more’ or no longer, as in the sentence Já não se usam chapéus (Hats are no longer fashionable).
By contrast, ainda não means ‘not yet’. There is a time-frame difference. Já abriu is used in the sense of ‘just (or recently) opened’, applied to a new establishment-in-town with a slight advertising slant to attract attention and customer traffic.
Not that I want to topple your frustration, but Há also means ‘there is/there are’ as in the sentence Há pessoas que passam fome (‘There are people who hunger’) or Há esperança (‘There is hope’). The confusion is that Há is both a verb and an adverb. And if your restaurateur repeats the ‘No problem’ formula to every occasion, just try to ask for the menu the way the natives do.
Instead of ‘Can we see the menu?’, try the friendly command A ementa, for favor. Or even better, do as the Portuguese do: sit at the table, rub your hands together as a clear sign of your anticipation to savour the local cuisine, and the waiter will automatically bring you the menu.
Learning a language, as we all know, cannot ensue through attempts to force-fit it into literal translation to one’s own. The very same is true for appreciation of a foreign culture.
As a native Portuguese who lived in London from 1973-75, already rather fluent in English then after 10 years of formal schooling in the language, I had my ego picked to pieces with rebukes by my upper-class hosts on the famous dos and don’ts of the English high-society.
Meanwhile, perfectly fluent in five European languages, including the scathing German in this/my country of residence, dealing with local dialects which vary from province to province, I am well schooled on adaptation. The old cliché and precept ‘In Rome, do as the Romans do’ is the smoothest way.
Maria Valentina Umer, MBA
Professor of Business Administration
Writer and Linguist-at-heart,
Heidelberg, Germany
