Questions & Answers about Não te rias de mim, por favor.
Why is the verb rias here? I thought the command form of rir was ri.
Because this is a negative command.
In Portuguese, negative commands are not formed with the regular imperative. They use the present subjunctive instead.
So for tu:
So rias is the form you expect after não in this kind of sentence.
A small extra detail: rias is also spelled the same way as another verb form in Portuguese, but here the structure não + pronoun + verb clearly shows it is a negative command.
Why is te there at all?
Because the verb here is being used in the expression rir-se de alguém, which means to laugh at someone or to make fun of someone.
So:
- rir = to laugh
- rir-se de alguém = to laugh at someone
In this sentence, te goes with tu. It is part of the verb construction in this meaning.
So Não te rias de mim is not literally about yourself in the English sense. It is just how Portuguese normally builds this idea.
Why is te before the verb and not after it?
Because não pulls the clitic pronoun before the verb.
In European Portuguese, little unstressed pronouns like me, te, se, lhe, nos often come after the verb, but some words force them to come before it. Negation is one of the main triggers.
Compare:
So não te rias is correct, while não rias-te is not.
Why is it de mim and not me or de eu?
Because after a preposition like de, Portuguese uses the stressed pronoun form.
That is why you get:
- de mim
- de ti
- de nós
- de ele/ela usually contracted differently in many contexts, depending on the structure
Here:
- mim is the correct pronoun after de
- eu is a subject pronoun, so de eu is wrong
- me is an unstressed clitic pronoun, not the form used after a preposition
So de mim is exactly what you should expect.
Why does Portuguese use de here when English uses at?
Because prepositions do not match word for word across languages.
English says laugh at someone. Portuguese says rir-se de alguém.
So it is better to learn the whole pattern:
- rir-se de alguém
rather than trying to translate each word separately.
Is this sentence informal or formal?
It is informal singular.
The clues are:
- te
- rias
These point to tu, the informal singular you, which is very common in Portugal.
A more formal version, addressed to one person, would be:
So if you are speaking to a friend, family member, classmate, or someone you address as tu, the original sentence fits well.
Can I also say Não rias de mim without te?
What does por favor do here?
Can por favor go somewhere else in the sentence?
Why is there a comma before por favor?
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