@ShiningInLuz
If (forgive me if I'm wrong) you don't speak and understand spoken portuguese, then it is inevitable that every conversation you have had in PDL must have been in English. So if you take as a sample all the people you have conversed with, you will get the apparent result that 100% of people there speak english. Have you never encountered a person there who doesn't speak english?
The real question is - are you sure that every portuguese person living in PDL, and every portuguese person holidaying in PDL, would understand a greeting in english in the street from a stranger like "aah, is she asleep?"
This I think is a critical point.
I lived in Olhão for 3 months before moving to Luz. Olhão is the largest fishing town on the Algarve. Despite having a lively tourist trade, the town is intrinsically Portuguese, and the bulk of the tourists are Portuguese. Lots of Germans, French and English, but still the majority were Portuguese.
I do not look Portuguese, but it was normal for people everywhere in Olhão to try Portuguese first, then go for English. The ladies in the supermarket never bothered with this. The would simply yak 10 to the dozen in Portuguese and I would smile and nod my head, and I loved it.
I'm not sure I like the idea of calling Luz "Little Britain", but it is dominated by Irish and English people, with Portuguese in the minority.
I have had roughly one conversation per year in Portuguese, with a Portuguese person, who spoke little or no English. The issue is that they prefer to converse in their decent English rather than my poor heard/spoken Portuguese.
I am adding 3 more intrinsically Portuguese places to the list in Luz. NECI is a major charity here handling children with learning disadvantages. I would plump for the staff talking to the parents and children in Portuguese.
Next, the Luz social club on Rua Direita is a place where I would expect Portuguese to be the dominant language.
Third, my grandchild goes to a rather decent school just around the corner from his home. From day 1, the staff talked to him only in Portuguese, and as under 5s are learning machines, he has done better with the language than any of us. Mind you, he gets frustrated when we cannot keep up with him. Plus, as the children at the school come from many countries, he is picking up Spanish, French etc.
"Aah, is she asleep?" Whether this would be understood or not, I cannot say. It certainly sounds nothing like the Portuguese equivalent. I would question whether it happened, given that it is not mentioned in the original statements.
Who supposedly said this? Is it Mary?
