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Today, we’re going to learn about the terms used to discuss communication and getting in touch.

Estou tentando entrar em contato com o Marcelo.
Já liguei para a casa dele, mas ninguém está atendendo.
Ele me deu o número de seu celular, mas não anotei.
Não adianta mandar email, se ele não está em casa.
Já escrevi para ele no Orkut, mas ele não deve ter visto.
Se eu tivesse o número dele, mandaria um SMS.
Preciso avisá-lo sobre o jogo, é urgente.

Entrar em contato com means “to get in touch with.” Tentar means to try. All together, this means, “I’m trying to get in touch with Marcelo.” Note that when we refer specifically to a person using his name, we use the article, which in this case is masculine [o], since we are referring to a man. If we were to translate this literally, we would say, “with the Marcelo.”

This means “I already called his house, but no one is picking up.” Ligar means to call, and atender means to pick up or answer the phone. Note that ninguém means no one, and dele is the possessive for his. Also note that we use the progressive tense like we would in English to say that no one is answering the phone.

Here, the speaker says: “He gave me his cell phone number, but I didn’t write it down.” Anotar is to write down. Celular is cell phone. Note that we say the number of his cell phone (o número de seu celular), and that in this case, we use seu for the possessive of “his.”

Adiantar> is a very useful verb that means to help or to be worth it to do something. To get an idea of how it is used, here’s an example: Não adianta voltar para o escritório, porque já está fechado. There’s no use in going back to the office, because it’s already closed. In this case, it is used to say “It won’t do any good to send an email if he’s not home.” Estar em casa means to be at home. Mandar email means to send email. Remember that PDAs are very expensive in Brazil and fewer people have Blackberrys and Iphones than in the US.

This means, “I wrote to him on Orkut, but he must not have seen it.” Orkut is the most popular social networking site in Brazil, and an overwhelming number of people use it. There’s a part similar to a Facebook wall, called scraps, where people leave each other messages to communicate. Note that we often use já when using the simple past, even if we don’t always translate it as “already” and make it implicit in the past tense, as we do here. In this case, we use dever (to should/must), to mean “he must not have seen it.”

In this sentence, we use the conditional tense. Here, the speaker says: “If I had his number, I’d send him a text message.” Mandar is to send. An SMS is a text message, and stands for serviço de mensagens curtas. They are also referred to as torpedos SMS and mensagens de texto. Text messages are a very common way of getting in touch with someone in Brazil, since cell phone calls are very expensive and text messaging is considerably cheaper.

This means: “I need to tell him about the game, it’s important.” Precisar is to need, and avisar is to warn or to tell. Here, we say “tell him” and have to use a contraction, in which we cut off the “r” in the infinitive, add a dash, and a lo (since it is a male we are referring to). Urgente means important or urgent.