Reporting claims and expressing distance in Brazilian Portuguese

Level B2

Reporting claims and expressing distance in Brazilian Portuguese

When discussing news or workplace information, show who supplied the information and whether you agree with it. Afirmar means to assert something and often sounds less skeptical than English “claim”; alegar presents someone's claim or stated grounds without establishing that they are true. Reconhecer means to acknowledge or admit something here, while negar means to deny it. Most examples suit everyday professional conversation; a gente is informal, while segundo informações divulgadas sounds like news reporting.

Expressions for sources, claims, admissions and denials

Name the source with segundo

Segundo fonte, informação relatada.

Report what someone asserts, acknowledges or denies

fonte verbo de relato que + oração / ter + particípio complemento.

Acknowledge or deny a previous action

fonte reconhece / nega ter particípio complemento.

Present information from reports or other people

Segundo informações divulgadas, informação relatada.

Keep the source's position separate from your own

Segundo names the source without expressing agreement or doubt by itself: “Segundo a Maya, os números estão errados.” The added phrase “e acho que ela tem razão” explicitly shows agreement, while “não consigo confirmar isso” marks a lack of confirmation. Afirmar reports an assertion, alegar attributes an unestablished claim or justification, reconhecer shows that the source accepts something as true, and negar reports rejection; none automatically proves what happened.

Unlike English “that”, que cannot simply be omitted before a finite reporting clause, and affirmative negar que normally takes the subjunctive, as in “Ele nega que o atraso tenha sido culpa dele.” For an earlier action by the reporting subject, use ter + past participle after reconhecer or negar instead of copying English “-ing”; a que clause is another option, as in “O editor reconheceu que publicou os números errados.”

“Segundo informações divulgadas” attributes information to published reports, whereas “pelo que dizem” is a conversational way to report what people say and does not identify a precise source. In “Ela reconheceu que a gente precisava de mais tempo.”, informal a gente means “we” but takes a singular verb; use “nós precisávamos” when a more formal wording is appropriate.

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