English Experts

[anita]

Hi! How could I say "sinal do celular" in Eglish? I mean, things like "meu celular está sem sinal" or "aqui há um bom sinal no meu celular". Thanks in advance!

[Henry Cunha]

We talk of "cellphone reception". We also talk of being "in/out of range":

There's no cellphone reception inside this building.
My cellphone is out of range along this isolated road.

One means that there is something (walls?) blocking reception. The other means that there is no, or too weak a, signal at a particular location due to distance from the transmission source.

There are other ways to say these things, I would think.

[pondedaniel]

complementando a ótima resposta do Henry:

one may talk about a dead zone which is a place with no cell phone or wireless coverage.

By the way, dead zone is an new expression that is becoming a part of English.

hope that helps!

Daniel

[donay mendonça]

Complementando:

Fala-se, como disse o Henry, em "cell phone reception."

O sinal do celular estar/ser bom: have/get good cell phone reception.
O sinal do celular estar/ser ruim: have/get bad cell phone reception.

Boa sorte!

[anita]

Well, thank you all!

[Henry Cunha]

You can also say "I can't get a signal on my cellphone." (But why make things too easy for you?) Rsrs

[dlr]

I don't get any reception here.
I don't have any bars. (because the signal strength is represented by little bars, and the more you have, the stronger the signal)

[pondedaniel]

@dlr:

nice tip! never heard that one before but it does make sense.

[dlr]

Also, if you have excellent reception you can say 'I have full bars' or 'I get full bars'

There's no signal here.
I don't get a signal here.
There's no reception.
I don't get any reception.
I have/get zero bars here.

I think nowadays where cell phones are so common, if you are talking about reception/bars/signal/coverage, you don't really need to say 'cell phone'. In a situation where you might be talking about a laptop and you need to clarify, basta dizer 'phone' or 'cell'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h36im8lDww4

[ailime]

If we have just 3 bars, how can we refer to that?

I have medium signal/reception(??)
I have just 3 bars(??)