I have felt my grasp of the present / past perfect tenses improve. However, today I struggled translating this sentence:
He just finished the book.
I incorrectly translated the sentence into:
Ele tinha terminado o livro recentemente.
To my half surprise, DuoLingo gave me this as the correct answer:
Ele acabou de terminar o livro.
Which led me to have an "aha" moment, which led me to google, which brings us together on Sunday Portuguese (thanks for reading Gabby)
The construction "acabar" (translated) + "de" + other verb (infinitive) conveys the meaning of just having finished some action.
Here's some examples:
Acabamos de entrar
We just came in (actually just entered)
Acabam de partir
They just left
Acabo de fazer
I just did (it)
Eu acabo de beber dois litros de leite de uma vez só, e agora estou me sentindo mal
I just drank two liters of milk in one go, and now I'm feeling sick
Acabo de terminar de comer
I just finished eating
Ok, now read this page:.
What you just read about is that the construction of "acabar + de" carries slightly different meaning depending on what tense the verb "acabar" is translated into. If you the verb is translated in the present tense, then the sentence further delivers the meaning that something "just happened". If you translate the sentence using the preterite tense, you convey a construction to the present perfect (i.e. I / he / she / you has just done something)
Examples (there's more examples on the Italki page listed below): I have read the BOTH these con
Ela acabou de fazer o jantar
She has finished preparing the dinner
In this example, this event could have occurred 5 minutes or two days ago. The meaning is still relatively recently.
Ela acaba de fazer o jantar
She just finished preparing the dinner
In this example, she just (right now) finished preparing dinner
Eu acabo escrever esta pagina.
Sources:
