Hello, what’s up? Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre as palavras fortunate, fortunately e happily.
Transcrição
Hey, how’s it going? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app.
OK, so the title of this podcast is “Como falo ‘felizes para sempre’ em inglês?” I know that many listeners and readers of this blog already know the answer to this question. After all, this is sort of a famous little expression, isn’t it? It’s part of the ending of pretty much every fairy tale that involves a prince and a princess: and they lived happily ever after…
Actually, though, this podcast doesn’t center around the expression “happily ever after”. Nope! That was just an easy way to introduce the topic. Today I’m going to focus on the difference between happily and fortunately, and also happy and fortunate. Let me start off with an actual example of how the word fortunate can be used. Once, a classmate of mine said “I feel very fortunate to be here”. What did she mean by that? “I feel very fortunate to be here”. That means, I feel lucky to be here, I feel blessed to be here. She felt fortunate to be there, to be a student at that school. She had the good fortune to be a student at that school. “Fortune”, in the expression “good fortune”, doesn’t mean a large amount of money. Fortune here means something like a happy outcome, a lucky fate.
And let me just bring your attention to the correct way to pronounce “fortunate” – yep, it’s the way I just said it, fortunate and not “fortuneite“. It’s just like the pronunciation of chocolate: fortunate. I feel very fortunate to live in a world where there is chocolate. Already, back to what my classmate said: I feel very fortunate to be here”. What would be different if she said “I feel very happy to be here”? If she had said “I feel very happy to be here”, that would mean that she had a feeling of joy, a feeling of happiness. So, to recap: “I feel fortunate” means “I feel lucky, I feel blessed”; whereas “I feel happy” means… well, “I have a feeling of happiness or joy”; I’m cheerful, I feel happy.
Here’s a popular way to use the word “fortunate”: you will very often hear someone say that what happened was a fortunate coincidence. It was a lucky coincidente; it was a fortunate coincidence. Example: it was a fortunate coincidence that my friend and I spotted each other at the concert since both of us had left our cell phones at home. So it was a fortunate coincidence that we spotted each other in the crowd.
So here’s another interesting tidbit of information: sometimes, the word happily is incorrectly translated as “felizmente” in Portuguese. Think about it – what does “felizmente” mean? It means that something turned out well; that luckily this thing or that thing happened. “Felizmente, tudo acabou bem”. Fortunately, all ended well. We had the good fortune of finding a nice place to stay. Fortunately, we found a nice place to stay. “Felizmente, achamos um bom lugar pra ficar”. Fortunately the police were able to arrest the criminals. Fortunately, no one was hurt. “Felizmente, felizmente”. Fortunately.
So how would we say “happily” in Portuguese? Here are two popular ways to use this word in English: “they lived happily ever after” and “John and Mary are happily married”. For the first one… I think everyone knows how to say that. “Eles viveram felizes para sempre”. We use the adjective “feliz”, right? They were happy in their lives; they lived happily. For the second one, “John and Mary are happily married”… They’re happy in their marriage; they’re happily married. We could say maybe “John e Mary tem um casamento feliz”? Jane was happily raised in New York. We could say that as “Jane cresceu feliz em New York”.
How about you give us some examples of your own? How would you say you’ve been fortunate lately? Let us know and talk to you next time!
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
The sentence you wrote : “Example: it was a fortunate coincidence that my friend and I spotted each other at the concert since both of us had left our cell phones at home. So it was a fortunate coincidence that we spotted each other in the crowd.”
UNFORTUNATELY the public universities got into a strike last year, so, I couln’t go to vacation on december because they were taking classes, therefore, I couldn’t pay a visit to my family that live in other state. But I quit the last course and pass to other course in the same university. So, my classes is going to begin on August and HAPPILY I will have a free time to make a trip and pay a visit to my dear family.
