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CookbookStudy and examsNo. 15

A language learner’s notebookgrammar, phrases and the mistakes you keep making

Recipe No. 15 · Study and exams

For: An adult learning European Portuguese for a move to Lisbon

You get: Grammar, phrases and a mistakes log, drilled accent by accent

Time: Twenty minutes after each lesson

See it in know.sh

Fazer in three tenses as tabs, one showing at a time, with the tu forms a Lisbon learner needs.

Portuguese for LisbonGrammar

9of 21

Fazer in three tenses (faço, fiz, fazia)

Observation, key section, 1 highlight, 250 words

This week Inês took me through fazer in three tenses. It is irregular in all of them and I need it every day: fazer anos, to have a birthday; faz frio, it is cold; fazer compras, to go shopping. I use tu with friends, and o senhor or a senhora with the landlord, which takes the same form as ele.

Watch for. The acute accent on fazíamos; a typed answer without it is wrong. And fez, not fazeu: the past is irregular all the way through.

The mistakes log: each section titled with the wrong and right forms. Bold numbers are mistakes still being made.

know., My mistakes · Look up, New, ⋯

Portuguese for Lisbon, No. 3

My mistakes — what I keep getting wrong, and why

14 sections, 2,210 words, about 9 minutes, filed 2 July, revised 20 September, 5 highlights.

☆ Star, Focus, Share, Move, Edit

Every mistake my tutor Inês, or anyone else, has corrected more than once. Each section says what I said, what I should have said, why, and links to the rule in Grammar. The ones still happening are marked key.

Sections

  1. Me chamo → Chamo-me (Problem, key). In a plain statement the pronoun goes after the verb, with a hyphen. It moves in front after não, question words and a few adverbs. (highlighted)
  2. Estou trabalhando → Estou a trabalhar (Problem, key). A habit from the Brazilian app I started with. Lisbon uses estar a plus the infinitive for what is happening now. (highlighted)
  3. Obrigado → Obrigada (Problem). It agrees with the person speaking, not the person thanked. I say obrigada.
  4. Você to the landlord → o senhor (Problem, 1 note). Você can sound curt here. With the landlord, o senhor, or the verb on its own.
  5. Gosto pizza → Gosto de pizza (Problem, key). Gostar always takes de: gosto de, gosto do, gosto da. (highlighted)
  6. Um café com leite → um galão (Observation). Not wrong, just not what anyone orders. A galão comes in a tall glass; a meia de leite in a cup.

and 8 more sections

A local model explaining a rule from the learner’s own sections, and noticing that one of them is too absolute.

A local model through Ollama, connected to know.sh · reading Grammar

You

Why is it “Chamo-me Ana” but “Não me chamo Ana”? European Portuguese only.

A local model through Ollama

In European Portuguese the unstressed pronoun normally goes after the verb in a plain statement, joined with a hyphen: Chamo-me Ana, Deu-me o livro.

Some words pull it in front of the verb:

  • negatives such as não and nunca: Não me chamo Ana
  • question words: Como te chamas?
  • adverbs such as já, também and ainda: Já me disseram
  • subordinate clauses after que, quando or se: Acho que se chama Ana

Brazilian Portuguese usually puts the pronoun in front, which is why Me chamo Ana sounds Brazilian in Lisbon. Your section 4 says the pronoun “always goes after the verb”. Shall I add these four exceptions to it, with your own examples kept?

From your library

  1. Grammar, 4: Pronoun after the verb (Chamo-me)
  2. My mistakes, 1: Me chamo → Chamo-me

How it works

Three documents hold your Portuguese: Grammar, Phrases by situation and My mistakes, where Me chamo becomes Chamo-me for good. Each everyday verb gets its tenses as tabs, the tu forms Lisbon uses included, and typed-answer quizzes mark pequeno-almoco wrong until you put the cedilla back.

  1. Set up three documents

    Ask your assistant for a Portuguese for Lisbon shelf, described as “European Portuguese, not Brazilian”, and three documents on it: Grammar, Phrases by situation and My mistakes.

  2. File each lesson

    After each lesson, give your assistant your notes and corrections. Each rule goes into Grammar, each phrase under its situation, and each mistake corrected twice into My mistakes.

  3. Give each verb its tenses as tabs

    Ask for a tabs element for each everyday verb: a tab per tense, the five forms from eu to eles with tu in its place, and an example of your own.

  4. Drill with typed answers

    Ask for eight typed-answer questions from My mistakes. The answer must match exactly, every accent, tilde, cedilla and hyphen, so a missing tilde is a wrong answer.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, add a section to the document “Grammar” on my “Portuguese for Lisbon” shelf titled “Fazer in three tenses (faço, fiz, fazia)”, with a tabs element: one tab each for Presente, Pretérito perfeito and Pretérito imperfeito, each listing the eu, tu, ele/ela/você, nós and eles/elas/vocês forms with every accent, and one example sentence with its English. European Portuguese only; say so if you are unsure of a form.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, make a quiz of eight typed-answer questions from the document “My mistakes” on my “Portuguese for Lisbon” shelf. Give the English and ask for the European Portuguese. Each answer must have exactly one correct form: short, lower case unless a name, no punctuation at the end. Cite the section each comes from.

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