Here’s a text about veganuary with some of the more interesting and instructive corrections at the bottom. Thanks to csc_3 for the help
A minha mulher sugeriu que façamos o desafio de comermos coisas sem cara* durante a mês de janeiro**. Também sugeriu ioga. A loucura da passagem de ano…
Infelizmente, depois de sugerir este novo modo de vida, ela lembrou que ovos não são vegan. Nem iogurte. E a nossa filha mencionou o seu amor por queijo. Então, vegetatianuary? Eu e a minha esposa fomos ambos vegetarianos desde a adolescência até 2004 quando ela engravidou da*** atual adolescente. Grávidas precisam de proteína. Proteína e chocolate. Proteína e chocolate e quaisquer outras coisas que lhes apetecem**** a qualquer hora do dia. Pois*****, começámos a comer carne naquela altura e hoje em dia esqueço-me como vivi durante os 20 anos de comer vegetais. E difícil imaginar um mês****** inteiro sem frango na salada e sem carne de vaca picada no molho bolonhesa.
E ainda por cima, tenho de fazer yoga?
*This was corrected to “sem carne” but no, vegetarians actually do say things like “I won’t eat anything with a face”.
**I’ll never get used to writing the names of months in lower case.
***Another one of those weird preposition differences between Portuguese and English: she got pregnant of our daughter, not with our daughter.
****I often think of apetecer as meaning to fancy something or feel like doing something but it’s more like “appeal”, so apetece-me means “it appeals to me”. The subject of the verb is the thing, not the person who desires the thing. So in this sentence, you have to give pregnant women what they want, but the subject of the verb is “coisas”. Que lhes (ie to the women) apetecem (they (ie the things) appeal)
***** I’m leaving this in because I think I don’t use pois enough and the more I get used to using it the better but the corrector pointed out that “Então” would be better in a written text and “pois” would be more common “na oralidade” – ie, in spoken language.
******I wrote “a mês” but you can tell it’s masculine because it has a moustache above the e.
By the way, it’s going ok-ish. I keep forgetting I’m meant to be avoiding cheese, butter etc and accidentally putting them in things but I haven’t eaten any meat at all, and even my daughter has voluntarily signed up for a meatless (but not cheeseless) month.
Luso 