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Estás doente? As melhoras!

Estás doente? As melhoras!
You are ill? Get well soon!
From Lesson 185:As fórmulas de todos os dias (está lá, as melhoras)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Estás doente? As melhoras!

Why do we say as melhoras to mean "get well soon"?
Literally, as melhoras translates to "the improvements". In Portuguese, it is the standard everyday idiom used to wish someone a quick recovery. You will almost always hear it used as a standalone phrase in the plural form like this.
Why use estás instead of és for "you are"?
We use estás (from the verb estar) because being ill is a temporary condition. If you used és (from the verb ser), it would imply the person is permanently sick or that being a sick person is part of their core identity!
Is the word doente masculine or feminine?
It is both! Adjectives ending in -e in Portuguese, like doente, usually have the exact same form for masculine and feminine subjects. You would say ele está doente for "he is ill" and ela está doente for "she is ill" without changing the word.
Why is there no word for "you" in the first sentence?
In Portuguese, the verb ending usually tells you exactly who is doing the action. The -s at the end of estás already means "you" in the informal singular form, so adding the pronoun tu before it is optional and often dropped in natural speech.

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