Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Brazil): No escritório, ninguém quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado. - In the office, nobody wants to work on the long holiday.

no escritório = em + o escritório → in the office
no feriado prolongado = em + o feriado prolongado → on the long holiday / on the long weekend

It does not mean English no (as in “no one”, “no money”).
That negative meaning is expressed with words like não, ninguém, nenhum, etc., not no.

What’s the difference between escritório and other Portuguese words for “workplace”, like oficina?

Escritório is specifically an office: a place with desks, computers, paperwork, etc.

escritório → office (law office, accounting office, company office)
- Trabalho em um escritório. = I work in an office.

Oficina is usually a workshop or repair shop, especially for cars:

oficina mecânica → car repair shop / garage
oficina de arte → art workshop (context-dependent)

So:

No escritório, ninguém quer trabalhar… = In the office, nobody wants to work…
If you said Na oficina, ninguém quer trabalhar…, you’d be talking about a workshop/garage, not a typical office.

What exactly is a feriado prolongado in Brazilian Portuguese?

A feriado prolongado is an extended holiday period, usually when a holiday is attached to a weekend so people can have a longer break.

Common situations:

A holiday falls on a Friday → Friday + weekend = feriado prolongado
A holiday falls on a Monday → Monday + weekend before = feriado prolongado
A holiday falls on Thursday and people also take off Friday → Thu–Sun = feriado prolongado

Informally, Brazilians also say:

feriadão (very common, casual) = “big holiday / long weekend”

So the sentence implies something like “during the long holiday / long weekend that’s coming up, nobody in the office wants to work.”

What’s the difference between feriado and férias?

They are completely different:

feriado = holiday (one specific day or a short period)
- Hoje é feriado. = Today is a holiday.
- feriado prolongado = long holiday / long weekend
férias = vacation / holidays (time off work or school)
- Always plural: as férias
- Estou de férias. = I’m on vacation.
- Minhas férias começam em julho. = My vacation starts in July.

In the sentence, feriado prolongado refers to a holiday period, not someone’s personal vacation time.

Why is it trabalhar no feriado prolongado and not something like trabalhar em o feriado prolongado?

Portuguese usually contracts prepositions with definite articles:

em + o → no
em + a → na
em + os → nos
em + as → nas

So:

em o feriado prolongado → no feriado prolongado
em o escritório → no escritório

Saying em o is grammatically wrong in standard Portuguese; you almost always use the contraction instead (except in some very specific stylistic or dialectal contexts you can ignore as a learner).

Why do we use no with a time expression (no feriado prolongado)? How does that compare to English on / in / during?

In Portuguese, em (→ no, na, etc.) is very common with days / dates / time periods:

no sábado = on Saturday
no Natal = at/on Christmas
no verão = in the summer
no feriado = on the holiday
no feriado prolongado = on/over the long holiday / long weekend

In English you might translate no feriado prolongado as:

on the long holiday
during the long weekend
over the long weekend

All of these can correspond to Portuguese no feriado prolongado.
If you want to emphasize “during the whole period”, you can also say:

durante o feriado prolongado = during the long holiday/weekend

Both no feriado prolongado and durante o feriado prolongado are natural here, with a very small nuance difference.

Why is there a comma after No escritório?

No escritório is a fronted location phrase (“In the office…”) placed at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis or context. In Portuguese, when you move such an adverbial phrase to the front, it is very common (and usually recommended) to separate it with a comma:

No escritório, ninguém quer trabalhar…
= In the office, nobody wants to work…

You could also say, without changing the meaning:

Ninguém quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado no escritório.
In this case, no escritório is at the end, and you don’t need a comma.

So the comma marks the phrase No escritório as a separate introductory element.

Could the word order be Ninguém no escritório quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado? Is that correct?

Yes, it is correct and very natural:

No escritório, ninguém quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado.
Ninguém no escritório quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado.

Both mean essentially the same thing: “In the office, nobody wants to work on the long holiday.”

Nuance:

No escritório, ninguém quer… slightly highlights the place first.
Ninguém no escritório quer… slightly highlights “nobody in the office” as a group.

In normal conversation, both word orders are used; the difference is more about rhythm and focus than about grammar.

Why don’t we say ninguém não quer trabalhar? In English we say “nobody doesn’t want” for double negatives in some dialects.

In standard Portuguese, only one negation is needed here:

Ninguém quer trabalhar. = Nobody wants to work.

If you say:

Ninguém não quer trabalhar.

this is usually:

grammatically odd / non-standard, or
understood as a logical double negative: “There is nobody who doesn’t want to work” (so actually “everybody wants to work”).

There is a concept called negative concord in Portuguese (using more than one negative in the same sentence), but it works differently, for example:

Não vi ninguém. = I didn’t see anybody.
(não
- ninguém is normal here.)

In your sentence, because ninguém is already at the beginning and occupies the subject position, you do not add não:

✅ Ninguém quer trabalhar.
❌ Ninguém não quer trabalhar. (avoid this as a learner)

Why is the verb quer singular with ninguém? Could it be querem?

Ninguém always takes a singular verb in standard Portuguese, even though it refers to more than one person in meaning:

Ninguém quer trabalhar. (not querem)
Ninguém gosta de acordar cedo.
Ninguém entende isso.

Think of ninguém as grammatically like ele/ela (he/she) in terms of verb agreement:

Ele quer…
Ela quer…
Ninguém quer…

So:

✅ Ninguém quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado.
❌ Ninguém querem trabalhar… (incorrect)

Could we say Ninguém quer trabalhar durante o feriado prolongado instead of no feriado prolongado? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say that, and it’s perfectly correct:

Ninguém quer trabalhar no feriado prolongado.
Ninguém quer trabalhar durante o feriado prolongado.

Both are natural. The nuance:

no feriado prolongado (literally “on the long holiday/weekend”) is very idiomatic and commonly used.
durante o feriado prolongado (“during the long holiday/weekend”) slightly emphasizes the entire duration more explicitly.

In everyday speech, no feriado prolongado is probably more frequent, but both are fine.

How do you pronounce escritório, ninguém, quer, and feriado?

Approximate Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation (ignoring very fine details):

escritório → es-kree-TÓ-ree-oo
- Stress on TÓ: es-cri-TÓ-ri-o
- Final -rio sounds like “ree-oo” blended together.
ninguém → neen-GENG (or neen-GEHM), nasal at the end
- Stress on guém: nin-GUÉM (with nasal ém)
- The ém with the tilde (~) makes the vowel nasal, roughly like the end of “sing”.
quer → kehR (with a short, open e)
- Similar to English “care” but without the diphthong, more like “kehrr”.
feriado → feh-ree-AH-doo
- Stress on a: fe-ri-A-do
- Final -o is often like “u” in Brazilian Portuguese, so closer to “du” than English “doh”.

Can we replace feriado prolongado with feriadão in this sentence? Is there any change in tone or formality?

Yes, you can say:

No escritório, ninguém quer trabalhar no feriadão.

This is very natural in Brazilian Portuguese. The difference:

feriado prolongado – neutral, slightly more formal / standard expression.
feriadão – very informal / colloquial, but extremely common in speech.

Meaning-wise, they’re basically the same (long holiday / long weekend).
In writing, choose:

feriado prolongado for more formal or neutral texts (emails, reports, news).
feriadão for casual messages, conversation, social media, etc.