Telling my landlord the hot water is broken: Prior attempts to fix the problem

🇵🇹 Ai is a common sigh of mild exasperation. A landlord saying this is reacting to the hassle, not blaming you.

🇵🇹 Many Portuguese flats heat water with a gas esquentador that lights up when you open the hot tap. It's usually the first thing a landlord asks about.

💬 des- reverses the verb: ligar "to turn on" becomes desligar. Same with fazer "to do" → desfazer "to undo".

💬 voltar a plus an action means "do it again". Swap in voltar a tentar "to try again" or voltar a ligar for calling back.

💬 experimentar means "to try" (a fix, food, clothes), not "to experiment". The -ei ending marks "I did it": liguei "I called", troquei "I changed".

💬 vez "time, occasion" is feminine, so it's duas rather than dois. Once is uma vez. The plural changes z to c: vezes.

🇵🇹 Many Portuguese homes heat water with a gas heater fed by a bottle of butane, so an empty botija is the first thing a landlord will suspect. Replacement bottles are swapped at petrol stations or local shops.

💬 vazia ends in -a because it describes a botija. For a masculine noun it's vazio, as in o depósito está vazio "the tank is empty".

💬 trocar means "to swap" or "to exchange", which fits handing in an empty bottle for a full one. The "I" past form adds a u: troquei, so the c keeps its k sound.

💬 à is a + a merged into one word, "at the". You'll see it in many time phrases: à tarde, à noite.

💬 trocar becomes troquei "I changed": the c turns into qu to keep the hard k sound before e. Same with ficar → fiquei "I stayed".

💬 Portuguese says técnico "technician" where English might say "repairman" or "engineer". It covers anyone who fixes appliances.

💬 cá is the European Portuguese "here" for movement towards the speaker, and it comes before the verb. veio is the irregular past form of vir "to come".

💬 no is em + o merged. Swap in na semana passada "last week", where em + a becomes na.

🇵🇹 Pois is a very Portuguese way of acknowledging what someone said, like "yeah, right". It's often used right before you politely push back, as here.

💬 problema ends in -a but is masculine, so it takes o. The same is true of o sistema "the system" and o tema "the topic".

💬 When o "him" attaches to a verb ending in -r, the r drops and the pronoun becomes lo: chamar + o → chamá-lo. Same with ver + a → vê-la "to see her".

💬 For phoning someone, ligar takes a, and a + o becomes ao. With a woman it's ligo à técnica.

💬 avisar means "to let someone know" or "to warn", not "to advise". Aviso alone is a complete promise: "I'll let you know".

💬 Ligo and aviso are ordinary present forms, but Portuguese uses them for near-future promises. In the same way, amanhã vou means "I'll go tomorrow".

🇵🇹 A common, neutral goodbye even when you won't see the person later that day. It works fine to end a call with your landlord.

💬 Literally "I ask for forgiveness". peço is the irregular "I" form of pedir "to ask for".

💬 pelo is por + o merged. With a feminine noun it's pela: pela demora "for the delay".