# Portuguese vs Spanish



## kynnjo

The Wikipedia defines "a null subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject," and classifies both Portuguese and Spanish as "null subject languages."

In Spanish, for example, "subject-less" sentences like "estoy con prisa" or "estudió en Francia" or "tenemos que responder pronto" are entirely routine, and not only in colloquial speech, but in the written language as well.  In fact, in some cases, explicitly mentioning the subject (as in "yo estoy con prisa") can sound distinctly foreign, unless the speaker means to contrast the explicit subject with someone else (e.g. "tú estarás descansando, pero yo estoy con prisa.")

I'm learning Portuguese now, and I'm struck by how much more often the subject is explicitly included than it is in Spanish, at least according to my learning materials.  E.g. the the translation given for the everyday colloquial expression "We don't have time" is "*Nos* não temos tempo", whereas in Spanish this idea would typically be expressed without an explicit subject: "No tenemos tiempo."  In fact, in my Portuguese course the subject is omitted _only_ in "imperative/hortatory" sentences like "vire à direita" and "vamos ao cinema".

Bottom line, judging by my learning materials, in Portuguese the subject is rarely omitted from sentences, even in informal speech.  My question is: is this representation of Portuguese accurate?

I suppose that one possible explanation is that my course concentrates on teaching "educated/polite speech" which, being more formal than everyday speech, more often retains the subject than does informal everyday speech.  Is this the case?

TIA!

~K


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## mellow-yellow

Me and my girlfriend, from Mexico, just started taking private Portuguese lessons three months ago. I asked our teacher from São Paulo if we could simply omit the subject pronouns in most cases. She said no. She even corrected me when I said, "não quero ir ao supermercado" adding the subject pronoun back in. However, they apparently do drop it in very clear contexts, though clearly less frequently that in Spanish.


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## Carfer

You can omit the subject in Portuguese, and we frequently do that, but not so often as in Spanish. Anyway I wouldn't go as far as to say that we omit the subject only in imperative sentences. That would be a gross exageration. There's nothing that prevents you from saying "Não temos tempo", both in formal or informal speech. Failure to include the subject is quite frequent in Portuguese, actually.

P.S. There's no reason to consider "_não quero ir ao supermercado_" incorrect. I dare say it's more frequently used than "_eu_ _não quero ir ao supermercado_"


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## Istriano

Brazilian Portuguese is a partially pro-drop language, with a strong tendency to use the subject pronoun in speech (eu sei, eu quero, eu queria saber, nós sabemos...) and to omit in formal written language (sei, quero, queria saber, sabemos)...

Normally only 1st verb is followed with a subject pronoun:
_Eu sei que vou te amar_,
but you can hear people using it all the time: _eu sei que eu vou te amar _without sounding reduntant or heavy.

Avoiding the subject pronoun marks the style as  somewhat written/journalistic,
even in formal oral speech the subject pronoun is normally used (I guess it has to do with rhythm of our Brazilian speech):
_nós sabemos, nós queremos, nós gostariamos de saber, eu sei...
_ 
Continental Portuguese is a classical example of a pro-drop  language, just like Italian.

Further reading:

Null subjects in European and *Brazilian* *Portuguese*. 

THE PARTIAL PRO-DROP NATURE AND
THE RESTRICTED VS ORDER IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

*Three partial pro-drop languages

*


> ''One remarkable difference between European and *Brazilian* *Portuguese* is related with the setting of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). While European *Portuguese* (EP) behaves like a prototypical romance null subject language, contemporary *Brazilian* *Portuguese* (BP) is a partially pro-drop system (Duarte 1995; Kato 2000), with preferably overt referential subjects and
> null expletive subjects in finite clauses, a procedure consistent with a discourse orientation shown by BP (Kato & Duarte 2003). ''
> 
> source: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/NWAV/abstracts/nwav36_cavalcante_duarte.pdf


My prediction: Brazilian Portuguese will soon be like English, a non pro-drop language, but with possible dropping of subject in
exclamations (lovin' it = tô amando), (loves it! = amei!), questions (wanna sandwich? = aceita um sanduíche?), and imperatives (lemme see = deixa eu ver).

PS
There are no rules but only tendencies, for example, if I see something nice, I'm likely to say: _Eu amo_ (with subject), _(Eu) tô amando/gostando_ (possible subject), _Amei/Gostei_ (without the subject pronoun)...
But if I had already said something before, I am likely to use the subject in all these cases...In this case the subject pronoun is like a linking word.  I can compare it to the article with possessives, I say:
_Meu pai _(not _O meu pai_), but  _Do meu pai_ (not _De meu pai_). 

As for the use in Spanish, see here:* Subject pronoun usage among Spanish dialects*


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## Istriano

kynnjo said:


> In Spanish, for example, "subject-less" sentences like "estoy con prisa" or "estudió en Francia" or "tenemos que responder pronto" are entirely routine, and not only in colloquial speech, but in the written language as well.  In fact, in some cases, explicitly mentioning the subject (as in "yo estoy con prisa") can sound distinctly foreign, unless the speaker means to contrast the explicit subject with someone else (e.g. "tú estarás descansando, pero yo estoy con prisa.")


_Yo quiero decir _(the usage of Yo when not necessary) is very frequent in Central Castillian Spanish, I hear it on Spanish TV (24horas) all the time.


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## kynnjo

Istriano said:


> Brazilian Portuguese is a partially pro-drop language, with a strong tendency to use the subject pronoun in speech (eu sei, eu quero, eu queria saber, nós sabemos...) and to omit in formal written language (sei, quero, queria saber, sabemos)...



Very interesting and, to me at least, completely counterintuitive.  My naive expectation was that the subject would be more likely to be dropped in informal spoken speech, which is what happens in English.



Istriano said:


> Normally only 1st verb is followed with a subject pronoun:
> _Eu sei que vou te amar_,
> but you can hear people using it all the time: _eu sei que eu vou te amar _without sounding reduntant or heavy.



This is good to know, though in my study of Portuguese I have not yet reached compound sentences like these...  



Istriano said:


> Continental Portuguese is a classical example of a pro-drop language, just like Italian.



This explains a lot.  (I should have mentioned in my original post that my Portuguese course teaches BP.)  The Wikipedia "Null subject" article should probably be edited to show _European_ Portuguese (rather than just Portuguese) among the null-subject languages, but I'll leave that to someone with first-hand knowledge.  



Istriano said:


> Further reading:
> 
> Null subjects in European and *Brazilian* *Portuguese*.
> 
> THE PARTIAL PRO-DROP NATURE AND
> THE RESTRICTED VS ORDER IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE
> 
> *Three partial pro-drop languages*



Thanks.  They're quite above my head, but the bits and pieces I can make out are very interesting all the same.

~K


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## kynnjo

Istriano said:


> I can compare it to the article with possessives, I say:
> _Meu pai _(not _O meu pai_), but  _Do meu pai_ (not _De meu pai_).



You just anticipated another question I had for this forum!  I keep seeing such usage ("meu coração é verde e rosa...") and was wondering about its status (poetic license?  colloquial/hurried/careless speech?  etc.)  But that's for another thread 



Istriano said:


> As for the use in Spanish, see here:* Subject pronoun usage among Spanish dialects*



Very cool stuff.  Thanks!

~K


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## Vanda

Are you sure your teacher is a Portuguese native?! People have already explained it beautifully above about the usage. Anyway, we do use more without the subject than the other way around. Most of the times we use the pronoun is to emphasize.


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## ewie

I find that every time I address a BZPT speaker on here, I *say* _você_.  Whereas when I address a PTPT speaker as _tú_, I never actually *say *_tú_.
Not sure why that is.


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## Benvindo

Vanda said:


> ... we do use more without the subject than the other way around. Most of the times we use the pronoun is to emphasize.



I agree*. And another thing is that we often use the pronoun when we start a conversation, but then drop it as it becomes unmistakably clear "who" is the subject (but sometimes put it again in the middle - style?). For instance, look at this excerpt from the lyrics of the song "A Noite do Meu Bem" by composer Dolores Duran (1930-1959):
... 
_Hoje *eu* *quero *a paz de criança dormindo
 E o abandono das flores se abrindo 
Para enfeitar a noite do meu bem  
*Quero* a alegria de um barco voltando _
_*Quero *a ternura de mãos se encontrando
 Para enfeitar a noite do meu bem 
Ah! *Eu  quero* o amor mais profundo...

* Though in the above song's complete lyrics itself the pronoun is made explicit 5 times, and is omitted only 3! Counter-intuitive?
_


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## Istriano

Um mundo ideal

versão portuguesa:
http://sonhosquetragoeu.blogs.sapo.pt/3168.html
verbo em primeira pessoa sem sujeito explícito: *100* %
com sujeito explícito: 0 %


versão brasileira:
http://letras.terra.com.br/aladdin/780833/
verbo em primeira pessoa  sem sujeito explícito: 44%
com sujeito explícito: *56*%

Porque gostamos mais de usar o sujeito explícito?
1. por ''pobreza'' verbal:  gostaria...  (eu gostaria, você gostaria, ele gostaria, a gente gostaria)...
2. por ''não podermos começar a frase com um clítico'', por  exemplo, segundo os gramáticos:_ Te liguei_ está errado mas _Eu te liguei_ está correto.
3. por causa do ritmo diferente da nossa fala


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## kynnjo

Vanda said:


> Are you sure your teacher is a Portuguese native?!



I'm using a "packaged" course with recorded audio.  It is clearly billed as a course in BP.  This course has very little explicit grammar.  Instead, it teaches by example, and drills the student using a question/answer/confirmation format.  I've noticed that one of the errors I make most consistently is to drop the subject pronoun when the sentence given in the confirmation includes it.  The reason for this error is that I'm used to the Spanish pattern, in which the subject pronoun would have been dropped.  (Curiously, I tend to drop _nos_ far more often than any other pronoun; I can't explain why.)

It occurred to me, thinking wishfully, that _maybe_ my "Spanish-corrupted" answers were not so _terribly_ wrong after all, since Portuguese and Spanish are such close "cousins".  Hence the aim of my original query was to gauge just how wrong my answers were.  Judging from the replies I got, my answers are not entirely colloquial in BP, but probably are not as "shocking to the ear" as, say, subjectless sentences would be in French or English.

In hindsight, I have to agree that the BP pattern of pronoun retention/dropping that one can infer from this course is more complex than the one I originally described.  I can't give a hard-and-fast rule.  E.g. I just came across this sentence "Eu quero viajar e nunca posso", in which the second pronoun has been dropped.  Also, the pronoun is often dropped in replies to questions; e.g. "Q. Você já viu esse filme? A. Sim, vi."

~K


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## Vanda

As I have said, when in speaking we drop most of them (writing is another story - and not because of grammar -, mostly because of grammar ignorance, I can tell you).


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## kynnjo

Here, just for the sake of concreteness, let me give some examples from my course.  They are all excerpts from conversations among business acquaintances.  In all cases, while doing the lesson I mistakenly dropped the _nós_ shown in bold.  To the native BP speakers: which of those _nós_-containing sentences (if any) would sound perfectly natural to you if the _nós_ were dropped?

_- As senhoras tem tempo para um cafezinho?
- Sim, *nós* temos tempo mais tarde.

- As senhoras gostam de cerveja?
- Não, *nós* não gostamos de cerveja.  Desculpe-me.  *Nós* gostamos de café.

- As senhoras gostam da cidade?
- Sim, *nós* gostamos da cidade.

- As senhoras não vão ficar muito tempo!
- Não, *nós* não vamos ficar muito tempo.

- Agora *nós* temos que comprar uma coisa.  *Nós* queremos comprar mais, mas *nós* não podemos.
- Por que?
- Porque *nós* não temos tempo.
_

~K

PS: I transcribed the above from audio.  I tried to avoid spelling and other transcription errors, but if you still spot one, please correct it.   (Thanks to anaczz for pointing out a few of them.)


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## anaczz

kynnjo said:


> _
> 
> - As senhoras gostam de cerveja?
> - Não, *nós* não gostamos de cerveja.  Desculpe-me.  *Nós* gostamos de café.
> 
> 
> 
> - As senhoras não vão ficar muito tempo!
> - Não, *nós* não vamos ficar muito tempo.
> Parece mais natural, para mim, dizer:
> *Não, não vamos ficar muito tempo.*
> (mas ambas as formas estão corretas)
> 
> - Agora *nós* temos que comprar uma coisa.  *Nós* queremos comprar mais, mas *nós* não podemos.
> - Porque? (*No Brasil: Por que?* *)
> - Porque *nós* não temos tempo.
> Não acredito que alguém fale assim. O mais natural seria algo como:
> *Agora nós temos que comprar uma coisa. Queremos comprar mais, mas não podemos. Porque não temos tempo.
> * _




*_ou isso muda com o novo acordo?_


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## Istriano

Bom, para esse tipo de coisa (perguntar p/a gente como que a gente usa a língua)...se fosse tão simples (perguntas diretas: você usa desse jeito? você não usa?), não haveria tantas pesquisas (que incluem uma gravação ''escondida'' de conversas informais)...

Isso me faz lembrar de uma pesquisa sobre _o tu_ em Brasília. Quando perguntaram p/as pessoas: vocês usam _o tu_ ou _o você_? 99% responderam que usavam só o você.  E nas gravações das conversas informais nem apareceu o pronome _você_, só _o tu_ (sempre com o verbo na terceira pessoa.)

A gente usa o sujeito explícito muito mais do que queremos admitir, isso é um fato. 

Procure uma novela no youtube _(Malhação _por exemplo). Não pergunte para a gente. 


Na língua falada, a gente usa e abusa, por exemplo: _ Minha mãe, ela gosta de dançar._ em vez de _Minha mãe gosta de dançar_.

As novelas são um bom exemplo da língua falada usada pela classe média (e a classe alta) brasileira. Se não gosta de assistir, dá uma olhada nos roteiros:
http://www.roteirodecinema.com.br/roteiros/celebridade.htm



> — Não é paciência, é estômago! Eu não agüento mais a Beatriz, se eu não sair de perto dela agora, eu vou enlouquecer! Ela é manipuladora, egoísta, nossa vida tem sido um inferno, eu não quero isso pra mim!


*CELEBRIDADE  - CAPÍTULO no.110*


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## kynnjo

Istriano said:


> Bom, para esse tipo de coisa (perguntar p/a gente como que a gente usa a língua)...se fosse tão simples (perguntas diretas: você usa desse jeito? você não usa?), não haveria tantas pesquisas (que incluem uma gravação ''escondida'' de conversas informais)...



I believe you.  It means also that, even for native speakers, it's also much harder than it seems to produce language learning materials that truly reflect the way the language is actually spoken everyday.

~K



Istriano said:


> Na língua falada, a gente usa e abusa, por exemplo: _ Minha mãe, ela gosta de dançar._ em vez de _Minha mãe gosta de dançar_.



Em vez de _*A* minha mãe gosta de dançar._ 

(Não é?)

~K


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## kynnjo

Benvindo said:


> _Hoje *eu* *quero *a paz de criança dormindo
> E o abandono das flores se abrindo
> Para enfeitar a noite do meu bem
> *Quero* a alegria de um barco voltando _
> _*Quero *a ternura de mãos se encontrando
> Para enfeitar a noite do meu bem
> Ah! *Eu  quero* o amor mais profundo...
> _



By the way, these are uncommonly beautiful lyrics.  Thanks for posting them.

~K


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## Benvindo

kynnjo said:


> By the way, these are uncommonly beautiful lyrics.  Thanks for posting them.
> 
> ~K



And thanks for replying! Now if you happen to play guitar, you can find the chords plus the rest of the lyrics here.


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## Nonstar

Kynnjo,

Sugiro que tente algumas frases para ver se consegue usar *naturalmente* o que aprendeu com esta discussão, poderemos lhe dizer se soará natural ou não. Acho que vai fazer mais sentido. (Nossa, deixei de usar sujeito em tudo!)

I suggest you try a few sentences in order to know if you can naturally use what you have learned with your query, we will be able to tell you if it will sound natural or not. I believe it will make more sense. (I dropped all the subjects, in Portuguese!)


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## Erick404

kynnjo said:


> To the native BP speakers: which of those _nós_-containing sentences (if any) would sound perfectly natural to you if the _nós_ were dropped?
> 
> _- As senhoras tem tempo para um cafezinho?
> - Sim, temos tempo mais tarde. *(dropped)
> Preferably: Sim, temos.*
> 
> - As senhoras gostam de cerveja?
> - Não, *nós* não gostamos de cerveja.  Desculpe-me.  *Nós* gostamos de café.  *(kept)*
> 
> - As senhoras gostam da cidade?
> - Sim, gostamos da cidade. __ *(dropped)*_
> *Preferably: Sim, gostamos.*
> _
> - As senhoras não vão ficar muito tempo!
> - Não, não vamos ficar muito tempo. __ *(dropped - see below)*_
> *Preferably: Não, não vamos ficar não.*
> _
> - Agora temos que comprar uma coisa.__ *(dropped)
> *__ *Nós* queremos comprar mais, __ *(kept)*_
> _mas não podemos.__ *(dropped)*_
> _ - Por que?
> - Porque __*nós* __não temos tempo. __ *(kept)*_



It has a lot to do with the rhythm of the sentence. For example, the sentence "_não vamos ficar muito tempo não_" sounds more natural than "_não vamos ficar muito tempo_" and "_nós não vamos ficar muito tempo_". However, this enters the realm of colloquial speech, where  unecessary words are sometimes added (like the double negation) and some sentences shortened. As a learner, you are naturally dealing with "book-forms" of informal senteces.

Please note that this is a quite subjective notion, and maybe other members would disagree with me.

Also, in informal spoken language, we often (but I'm not sure if mostly) use _a gente_ instead of _nós_. Thus, it's necessary to mention the "pronoun" at least once, at the beginning of a sentence, in order to use the verb in the 3rd person.

You told you had a greater tendency to drop _nós_ than other pronouns. Maybe because 1st person plural has a "bigger", "clearer" marker (-mos)?


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## Istriano

There is a textbook for speakers of English and Spanish that talks about this:
*Pois Não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers*
 


(just click on it)


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## kynnjo

Erick404 said:


> You told you had a greater tendency to drop _nós_ than other pronouns. Maybe because 1st person plural has a "bigger", "clearer" marker (-mos)?



That's an interesting hypothesis.  I think it's on the right track.  I had a somewhat related hypothesis that my greater tendency to drop _nós_ reflects my greater tendency to drop _nosotros_ in Spanish (relative to _yo_, _tú_, etc.), and the latter is explained by the fact that _nosotros_ is too much work just to say "we"!  

~K


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## kynnjo

Istriano said:


> There is a textbook for speakers of English and Spanish that talks about this:
> *Pois Não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers*



Istriano, I'm _so_ grateful to you for that link!  And not only because it gives a very direct answer to the question that led me to post this query, but also because, more generally, this book looks like an all around great reference for someone like me.  (And what a surprise to find such a book written in _English_!)

~K


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## portumania

Since the Cultural Discussions forum is restricted to specific members, I will post my question here, though it is obviously irrelevant. If someone wants to learn both Spanish and Portuguese at a proficiency level, what is best to do, learn to speak one language fluently and then to start learning the other one? Or should he start learning both of them at almost the same time? I emphasise on almost.
All dialects of Spanish are easier than Portuguese. It makes sense to start learning Spanish first? Or learning Portuguese will make the study of Spanish easier? Since Portuguese grammar is more complicated than the Spanish one? But obviously the Spanish spelling is much easier


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## almufadado

Wow ... that's not a question ... that's a start for a thesis !

For my own personal experience, I can tell you can learn whatever you set you mind into. The more you learn, the more you neural pathways are linked to form the core of what you are, and what you can comprehend and achieve. 

Learning take time from me, but does not seem to take space from my brain. The hardest thing is to manage the time so don't ended up a social inept, and to remain focus in as little objectives as possible at given time.

Depending on your age, you can do two types of management. 
If you are young, you can sink your teeth in many things at once. Listen to people talking (audio books), read things in both languages, speak to people in both languages so you can find the switch that allow you to think, to feel and to "dance" at the sounds of the language. 

As I (and the forum) already told you about Portugal and Brazil some of differences, this also applied to Spanish. 

Between Portuguese and Spanish, there is some differences in the core vocabulary (bigger ones on specialized contexts and slangs), but the main difference is the musicality : Eu gosto de ti ... tu me gustas/me gustas tu .

So the best thing is to spend, for example, one week at each language to feel it. 
First the verbs ... repeat them over and over so you can know them by heart.
Them the pronouns, substantives and adjectives.

Them the trick part is to make some sort of table in your head where you match all the languages for a particular thing you need to say. 

When speaking do not be afraid to fail, because by failing you will learn why you failed and those are the lessons that stick. 

 For an English speaking person you have to invert everything (as I do for my own language, to get the right syntax:

You are a beautiful girl ! -> Tu és linda ! -> ¡ qué guapa es! 

Just some thoughts !


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## Archaicos

Whichever of the two languages you chose to learn first, it will definitely help you to learn the other one. That's for sure. Many people, however, advise not to learn very closely related languages at the same time because of their interference in your head, because you'll likely end up unconsciously mixing up both in either spelling or grammar or pronunciation or word usage. It has happened to me once when I spelt Spanish muchí*s*imo as muchí*ss*imo and the fact that I knew Spanish pretty well at the moment didn't help to avoid this mistake; a little exposure to some of the intricacies of Portuguese was enough.  Having learned most of the Portuguese grammar and spent a lot of time figuring out the (Brazilian) Portuguese reading/spelling rules and pronunciation I must tell you that Spanish will be a lot easier to start with than Portuguese. Portuguese seems to be a little easier only with verb conjugations because unlike Spanish it doesn't have that many irregular verbs changing the root stressed o to ue/u and e to ie/i. A few other things are a bit more regular in Portuguese verb conjugations, but other than that, Portuguese is more complex than Spanish in many ways. Hope this helps.


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## Nanon

There are several related threads, among which a more general thread about learning of Romance languages here.
Besides, there are plenty of discussions in the Português-español forum... meaning that the topic is endless!



> It makes sense to start learning Spanish first?


Whatever makes sense for you in given circumstances... makes sense. In my humble opinion, learning always makes sense, but that's an entirely different story .


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