Direct Translation Errors (Calques) | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

A calque is what happens when you translate a phrase from your native language word by word and land on something that is technically Portuguese but nothing a native speaker would ever say. Calques are not grammatical errors in the strictest sense — the sentences parse — they are idiomatic errors. The listener understands you, but the sentence sounds foreign. Fixing calques is the single biggest step from intermediate Portuguese to natural Portuguese, because it replaces dozens of individual mistakes with a simpler habit: don't translate, reach for the Portuguese expression.

This page catalogues the calques English speakers commit most often. Each is paired with the natural Portuguese alternative. Read it as a reference, not a memory test — bookmark it and check back whenever a sentence you wrote sounds suspicious.

Verbs of state: ter or estar com, never ser

English uses to be for physical and emotional states: I am hungry, I am cold, I am sleepy, I am right, I am lucky. Portuguese uses ter (to have) or estar com (to be with) for the same semantic territory. Using ser here is one of the most immediately recognisable learner errors.

Tenho muita fome, vamos comer qualquer coisa.

I'm really hungry, let's eat something.

Estou com frio, podes fechar a janela?

I'm cold, can you close the window?

Tens razão, nunca tinha pensado nisso assim.

You're right, I had never thought about it that way.

Tivemos muita sorte com o tempo durante as férias.

We were very lucky with the weather during our holidays.

❌ Sou com fome.

Incorrect — *ser com* is never used for states

✅ Tenho fome.

I'm hungry.

❌ Ela é certa sobre isso.

Incorrect — 'to be right' is *ter razão*, not *ser certo*

✅ Ela tem razão sobre isso.

She's right about that.

The full set: ter fome / sede / frio / calor / sono / vontade / medo / pressa / razão / sorte / saudades. All of these take ter, not ser.

Fazer sentido, not fazer senso

English to make sense calques naturally into fazer sentido. Watch for the false cognate — senso exists in Portuguese but means judgement, good sense (as in bom senso = common sense), not meaning.

O que ele disse não faz sentido nenhum.

What he said doesn't make any sense.

❌ Isso não faz senso.

Incorrect — the noun here is *sentido*

✅ Isso não faz sentido.

That doesn't make sense.

Ter saudades: the untranslatable one

English speakers often try to say I miss you with perder, which actually means to lose. The idiomatic Portuguese is ter saudades (de) — literally to have yearning for. Sentir falta de also works but is slightly more neutral.

Tenho muitas saudades tuas, aparece quando puderes.

I miss you a lot, come by when you can.

Ela sente falta da família desde que se mudou.

She misses her family since she moved away.

❌ Perco-te muito.

Incorrect — *perder* means 'to lose', not 'to miss'

✅ Tenho saudades tuas.

I miss you.

Fazer perguntas, not perguntar perguntas

English to ask questions contains a redundancy that Portuguese refuses to copy. You don't question questions in Portuguese — you make them.

Os alunos fizeram imensas perguntas no final da aula.

The students asked loads of questions at the end of class.

❌ Perguntei muitas perguntas à professora.

Incorrect — redundant; use *fazer* with *perguntas*

✅ Fiz muitas perguntas à professora.

I asked the teacher lots of questions.

You perguntar things directly (Perguntei-lhe se estava tudo bem) but you fazer perguntas when the noun perguntas appears explicitly.

The preposition trap: verbs that take different prepositions

A huge number of calques are preposition errors. English speakers transfer about, on, in, from and produce sentences that are grammatical English dressed up in Portuguese vocabulary.

English	Wrong calque	Correct Portuguese
depend on	depender em	depender de
different from	diferente a	diferente de
worry about	preocupar-se sobre	preocupar-se com
marry (someone)	casar alguém	casar com alguém
think about / of	pensar sobre (sometimes)	pensar em (default)
dream about / of	sonhar sobre	sonhar com
remember	lembrar alguém	lembrar-se de
forget	esquecer algo	esquecer-se de algo
arrive at / in	chegar em casa (BR)	chegar a casa (PT)

Tudo depende do tempo que estiver no sábado.

Everything depends on the weather on Saturday.

A minha irmã casou-se com um arquiteto holandês.

My sister married a Dutch architect.

Sonhei contigo ontem à noite.

I dreamt about you last night.

Esqueci-me completamente da reunião das três.

I completely forgot about the three o'clock meeting.

❌ Casou um médico.

Incorrect — 'marry someone' requires *com*

✅ Casou com um médico.

She married a doctor.

The PT-PT vs BR-PT calque trap

Some calques sound natural in Brazilian Portuguese but strike a European Portuguese ear as foreign. Tomar o autocarro is a classic: it means to take the bus and works in Brazil, but in Portugal buses are apanhados, not tomados.

PT-PT	BR (sounds off in Portugal)	English
apanhar o autocarro	pegar/tomar o ônibus	take the bus
chegar a casa	chegar em casa	arrive home
estar a fazer	estar fazendo	to be doing
telemóvel	celular	mobile phone
autocarro	ônibus	bus
pequeno-almoço	café da manhã	breakfast

Apanho o autocarro das sete para ir trabalhar.

I catch the seven o'clock bus to go to work.

Cheguei a casa por volta das onze da noite.

I got home around eleven at night.

Other high-frequency calque traps

Pretender ≠ to pretend. Pretender means to intend in Portuguese. For English pretend, use fingir.

Pretendo comprar casa no próximo ano.

I intend to buy a house next year.

A criança fingiu que estava a dormir quando a mãe entrou.

The child pretended to be asleep when her mother came in.

Conseguir + infinitive, not ser capaz de, for to manage to / to be able to in everyday speech. Ser capaz de is not wrong, but sounds slightly bookish for day-to-day statements.

Não consegui dormir por causa do barulho.

I couldn't sleep because of the noise.

Ele consegue falar cinco línguas sem problemas.

He can speak five languages without any trouble.

Preso em, not preso on or preso at. For any meaning of stuck — stuck in traffic, stuck at work, stuck on a problem — Portuguese uses em.

Fiquei presa no trânsito durante mais de uma hora.

I was stuck in traffic for over an hour.

Tomar banho for take a shower/bath is natural; fazer is sometimes used colloquially for shower (fazer um duche) but the default is tomar.

Vou tomar banho antes do jantar.

I'm going to take a shower before dinner.

Cultural calques: when humour doesn't translate

The deepest calque problems are not lexical but pragmatic. Sarcasm in Portuguese often relies on falling intonation and markers like pois or lá está, not on the exaggerated stress English uses. Translating an English sarcastic remark literally produces a sentence that sounds like a sincere statement — and Portuguese listeners will take it that way.

Similarly, understatement ("not bad" meaning "excellent") does not carry over. Portuguese tends to prefer direct evaluation with hedging ("nada mau, até" = "actually, not bad at all") rather than the bare "not bad".

If you translate your irony literally, you will be read as either sincere or confused. This is a subtle but important kind of calque — the pragmatic one.

Common mistakes

❌ Sou muito sorte de ter este trabalho.

Incorrect — use *ter sorte*, not *ser sorte*

✅ Tenho muita sorte em ter este trabalho.

I'm very lucky to have this job.

❌ Ele está diferente a mim nesse aspecto.

Incorrect — *diferente* takes *de*

✅ Ele é diferente de mim nesse aspecto.

He's different from me in that respect.

❌ Preocupo-me sobre o exame de amanhã.

Incorrect — *preocupar-se* takes *com*

✅ Preocupo-me com o exame de amanhã.

I'm worried about tomorrow's exam.

❌ Pretendo que não ouvi.

Incorrect — *pretender* means 'intend', not 'pretend'

✅ Finjo que não ouvi.

I'll pretend I didn't hear.

❌ Lembro o teu nome.

Incorrect — *lembrar* here must be reflexive and take *de*

✅ Lembro-me do teu nome.

I remember your name.

Key takeaways

Portuguese is not English with different words. The most persistent learner errors come from transferring English prepositions, English to be for states, and English idiom structures (make sense, take a bus, stuck on something) directly into Portuguese. The antidote is not to memorise every calque but to develop a reflex: when you are about to translate a fixed English expression, pause and reach for the Portuguese equivalent you've heard natives use. Over time the reflex becomes automatic and the calques disappear from your speech.