Learn how to buy and use a pre-paid telephone card in Portugal
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| INTRODUCTION |
| While most people wouldn't or couldn't step outside without their cell phones, when visiting another country, sometimes it's a little too far for your local carrier. You can of course use your cell phone when you get to Portugal, but you have to pay very expensive charges. So if you feel like saving your money, the good old ways work like a charm. |
| But to help you out, in Portugal, you can buy prepaid phone cards for cell phones. These prepaid cell phone cards are sold in kiosks and phone operator offices. These include a SIM card with PIN and PUK codes and of course a Portuguese phone number. You can insert the SIM card into your mobile phone and use it with a Portuguese number. How easy is that! That is what we will focus on in this lesson. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| The Portuguese expression for prepaid cell phone card is cartão pré-pago. This is literally translated as “card prepaid". |
| Let’s break it down. |
| cartão pré-pago. |
| Once more: |
| Cartão pré-pago. |
| The first word Cartão means “card”. |
| (slow) Car-tão. |
| Cartão. |
| At the end there is pré-pago translated as “prepaid”. |
| (slow) pré-pa-go. |
| pré-pago. |
| The whole expression is: |
| Cartão pré-pago. |
| Remember it refers to a SIM card that offers you access to a prepaid service. |
| Therefore, in order to ask "Do you sell prepaid cell phone cards?" say - |
| Vende-se cartão pré-pago? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| Ven-de-se car-tão pré-pa-go? |
| Once more: |
| Vende-se cartão pré-pago? |
| The first word Vende-se is translated as “do you sell” |
| (slow) Ven-de-se. |
| Vende-se. |
| Next we have cartão pré-pago. As we learned before, it means “prepaid card” in English. |
| (slow) Car-tão pré-pa-go. |
| cartão pré-pago |
| All together, we have |
| (slow) Ven-de-se cartão pré-pa-go? |
| Vende-se cartão pré-pago? |
| Literally this means, “Do you sell prepaid cell phone cards?” |
| The answer to this will be “yes” (sim) or “no” (não). If they do have the cards, you'll want to ask for one. |
| Let’s try to ask for one phone card. |
| Um cartão pré-pago, por favor. |
| (slow) Um car-tão pré-pa-go por fa-vor. |
| This literally means “A prepaid card, please”. |
| Once again: |
| Um cartão pré-pago, por favor. |
| Usually the new prepaid cell phone cards have 5 euro credit. If you plan on using the phone much, that probably won't be enough for you. In that case you’ll have to recharge it. In order to do that say: |
| Queria recarregar o meu número. |
| (slow) Que-ri-a re-car-re-gar o meu nú-me-ro. |
| Queria recarregar o meu número. |
| The first word queria , means “I would like” |
| (slow) que-ri-a. |
| queria |
| Next we have the expression recarregar which means “to recharge”. |
| (slow) re-car-re-gar |
| recarregar. |
| At the end we have o meu número, that means “my number” |
| (slow) o meu nú-me-ro |
| o meu número |
| Queria recarregar o meu número |
| This means “I would like to recharge my number”. |
| Then he will ask you for the number. So just say or write down the phone number you want to recharge. |
| ・ |
| Let’s imagine you want to recharge your account with 5 euros. In this case we say: |
| Queria fazer uma recarga de 5 euros, por favor. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| Que-ri-a fa-zer u-ma re-car-ga de 5 eu-ros, por fa-vor. |
| Once again: |
| Queria fazer uma recarga de 5 euros, por favor. |
| Queria, as we learned, means “I would like” |
| fazer is the verb “to do” |
| (slow) fa-zer |
| fazer |
| Next we have uma recarga, that means “a recharge” |
| (slow) u-ma re-car-ga |
| uma recarga |
| De 5 euros is literally translated as “of five euros”. |
| (slow) De cin-co eu-ros. |
| De cinco euros. |
| And finally por favor, “please”. |
| Here’s the entire sentence: |
| Queria fazer uma recarga de 5 euros, por favor. |
| This means, “I’d like to make a 5-Euro recharge, please.” |
| For a 7 euro card, you just have to change the value this way: Instead of cinco , say sete. |
| (slow) Se-te. |
| Sete. |
| The whole phrase will sound like this: |
| (slow) Que-ri-a fa-zer u-ma re-car-ga de se-te eu-ros, por fa-vor. |
| Queria fazer uma recarga de sete euros, por favor. |
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