I think I might try a new thing: writing notes of mistakes I have made in lessons to avoid making them again. Here are a few from today’s lesson with a new teacher:
após de trabalhar tão duro
should be
após trabalhar tão arduamente
because após doesn’t need a “de” after it (I always find these small change words hard to deal with!) and “duro” means hard in the sense of solid, as opposed to “working hard” and apparently it sounds a bit sexual in the wrong context, so best avoided. Ahem. Moving on, “arduamente” (cognate with “arduously”) seems to be a better fit
para conhecer um ao outro
should be
para nos conhecermos
because it’s a more natural way of speaking in place of a literal translation of “get to know one another” it’s more like “to us get to know us”. Anything involving the infinitivo pessoal is bound to be very, very unfamiliar to English ears, so it’s all down to practice, I suppose, and getting used to it so you can pull it out of the word-hoard when you need it.
se tem épocas
should be
se tiver(es) disponibilidade
Actually, “épocas” sounds weird in English, since it’s obviously cognate with “epochs” but it’s the way the CAPLE registration page describes a lack of available spaces in their schedule (“Ainda não existem épocas disponíveis neste LAPE”), which is why I used it. Formal Portuguese sometimes uses weird words no normal person would use so it’s better to say “disponibilidade” (“availability”). “Tiveres” or “tiver” is the future subjunctive because it’s something that I’m talking about in the future and there’s some uncertainty in the mix.
Finally
Arranjar
in the sense of “arrange a meeting” doesn’t work. It’s a false friend. Arranjar means to fix something that’s broken. The correct word is
Marcar
which has a few senses, including “to score a goal” as you can see here.
