German to Portuguese in Portugal: ongoing actions and pronouns around infinitives
Gerade can call for an ongoing-action construction
German Ich lese can describe a general activity or reading underway now; gerade makes the latter interpretation clearer. Ciberdúvidas explains that standard Portuguese in Portugal commonly uses estar with a plus an infinitive, illustrated by estou a ler. Brazilian Portuguese commonly uses estou lendo instead, while gerund constructions also occur regionally in Portugal. The contrast is a preference of variety, not evidence that one form is universally impossible.
For a German reader, the practical issue is the action’s timing. Do not remove gerade from a source message if the distinction between a general habit and the current activity matters. A multiword Portuguese predicate can represent that ongoing meaning even though German uses a short finite verb with an adverb.
The same grammatical discussion distinguishes the scope of negation with a modal: a statement that someone may not finish differs from a statement that someone cannot finish. German kann nicht can also invite competing readings in a short fragment. Make the intended possibility or prohibition explicit rather than expecting the Portuguese negative word alone to settle it.
Für dich does not explain every para tu construction
Ciberdúvidas distinguishes tu as a subject from ti as a preposition-governed complement. Its example Este filme é bom para ti describes a film as good for you. German für dich is a useful comparison here: the person is the complement of a preposition, not the actor of a following verb.
However, the source also gives Este filme é bom para tu veres, where tu is the subject of the personal infinitive. A German reader accustomed to seeing dich after für should not replace tu with ti merely because para appears before it. The following verb changes the grammatical relationship.
This is relevant when translating German recommendations: a statement about what is good for a person and a recommendation that the person watch something are closely related but differently structured. Preserve the intended action in the source. Dropping the German infinitive or subordinate clause can turn a recommendation to do something into a bare evaluation for someone.
An infinitive can identify its own participants
German infinitives do not normally receive a personal ending comparable to Portuguese fazerem. In a German sentence with damit sie es tun können, the subordinate pronoun and verb identify the people performing the action. Portuguese can instead place those participants inside a personal-infinitive construction. Ciberdúvidas illustrates para eles o fazerem in its discussion of European Portuguese.
Here eles supplies the actors and o represents the thing to be done; the infinitive’s ending also carries personal information. The small o is therefore not a German-like article in front of a noun. Read the whole construction before deciding that the translation has inserted or omitted an object.
The consultation specifically discusses where that object pronoun appears with an inflected infinitive in European Portuguese. It does not support a blanket rule that every Portuguese pronoun must follow its verb. A German reader should retain the source’s participants and object reference, then interpret their Portuguese positions according to the actual construction rather than German word order.
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