Como dizer "Eles não estão, eles são" em inglês

Pessoal,

Estava conversando com um amigo sobre o Corona Vírus e o atendimento à população pelo SUS. Meu amigo disse: "Os hospitais públicos estão péssimos.". Eu respondi para ele: "Estão não, eles são!" Então me veio a dúvida de como dizer isso em inglês já que Ser e Estar ambos são To Be. Não faria sentido a tradução literal "They are not, they are!" Lol

Então, existe uma forma de dizer isso em inglês com a mesma ênfase do português? Ou teria que dizer algo como "They always are!" ou "They are for life!" ou "They always have been and always will be terrible!".

Anyhow, I hope you guys get what I mean. Thanks for helping me.

TESTE DE NÍVEL
Faça um teste de inglês e descubra seu nível em 10 minutos! Este teste foi desenvolvido por professores experientes. O resultado sai na hora e com gabarito. Você ainda ganha o eBook sobre o Verbo Get em seu e-mail. INICIAR TESTE
9 respostas
Ordenar por: Data
Leonardo96 19 293
Yes, you can say "They always have been". It seems like the most suitable option to me. The way you'll translate it into English depends on the context, or more precisely the exact words being used in the sentence that led you to say this because technically the context is the same, for example someone could say "she looks beautiful" and you could reply with "she doesn't look beautiful, she is beautiful"(ela nao esta, ela é) in this case you can afford to stick with "are/is" instead of saying"always have/has been" because in English they have another word to refer to a person looking beautiful at one particular moment in "look" instead of "are"(está, which is what we would use in Portuguese), it does make things a whole lot easier in this particular case. In Portuguese people say "voce está bonito(a)" to compliment the way a person looks for a particular occasion or after they've changed their looks in some area but you could never say "you ARE beautiful" in this context, it doesn't convey the same idea.Anyhow, each specific case requires a different translation, don't go around using "look" to translate "está" into English everytime you come across a similar context. But once your brain is used to the patterns of English it becomes easy to come up with a suitable and correct translation. Feel free to throw some more examples my way if you want to and i'll be glad to provide a proper translation for them, as long as my brain doesn't fail me, that is.
Thank you for your answer Leonardo. So, in the example that I gave "Os hospitais públicos estão péssimos", If I translate it to "Public hospitals look terrible." Do you think that natives are gonna understand like only the appearance of the building is bad but the service may be good? Or could they understand like the whole thing isn't working? And If I say "Public hospitals are terrible", it already means that they always have been bad, right?
PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
They are? No. They always have been! could express that.

Of course, there are other ways to convey the idea.
PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
And some more to the table:

What do you mean by "they are"'? They have been for ages!
They are? Are you kidding? They have been this way forever.
Leonardo96 19 293
Tarcizo Gabriel Da escreveu: 16 Mar 2020, 20:54 Thank you for your answer Leonardo. So, in the example that I gave "Os hospitais públicos estão péssimos", If I translate it to "Public hospitals look terrible." Do you think that natives are gonna understand like only the appearance of the building is bad but the service may be good? Or could they understand like the whole thing isn't working? And If I say "Public hospitals are terrible", it already means that they always have been bad, right?
Yes, that's how it would come off to them at first, but there are a number of factors involved with the previous context of the conversation being the main one, but if you were to just say "public hospitals look terrible" as perhaps a conversation opener people would take it as if you're talking about the appearance of the building in which the hospitals are, it could either be the facade or inside, or both. Perhaps If you say "Public hospitals are looking terrible these days" there might be a slightly higher likelihood that people won't think you're necessarily talking about their appearance, it may give out the idea that you're talking about the reputation of the hospitals, as if it's been tarnished which would probably have a lot more to do with the service they provide, which is what you're looking for, but again, provided that there's no previous context to guess from because it always plays a role, for example you could say "All public hospitals have done these days is worsen the health of people" and then follow it up with "they are looking terrible these days" then it would be pretty clear you're not talking about the apperance of the building because the previous context is lending a helping hand. But I would just steer away from "look" here if you ask me, it almost always refers to appearances. To convey the idea that the service in a hospital has been bad without necessarily it being the way it has always been but rather just as of late you could say "they're doing a terrible job in public hospitals" or "Public hospitals have been a mess" with a variety of other options.
POWER QUESTIONS
O professor das celebridades Daniel Bonatti ensina várias técnicas para você ter conversas melhores mesmo com conhecimentos básicos de inglês. Com as power questions você vai aprender a direcionar a conversa para onde quiser e com isso alcançar seus objetivos na comunicação. ACESSAR AULA
PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
Could also state that: "the public hospitals in Brazil are in a precarious state", it could also state "the public health system is in a precarious state"...

That was already a bleak outlook of a situation of unacceptable precariousness, and now this!
Leonardo96 19 293
PPAULO escreveu: 16 Mar 2020, 23:19 What about "the public hospitals in Brazil are in a precarious state", it could also state "the public health system is in a precarious state"...and now this!
I like the second one better. The first one might give out the idea that the hospitals have been abandoned or something of the sort and haven't been provided a much needed renovation in order to get better equipment and take better care of people's health, it may or may not be their own fault. "Public health system" on the other hand makes it pretty clear by itself that you're talking about the service they provide in hospitals.
PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
In an attempt to avoid such ambiguity we could edit it then to:
Most public hospitals operate in precarious conditions.
OR
The provision of health service in public hospitals is inadequate (aggravated by being understaffed and under-equipped, the medical facility itself being inadequate [1], etc).

[1] Example, a hospital in which infectious disease patients coexist with patients with immunodeficiency disease patients.
Or even the staff not being trained to new strains of germs, bacterias, virus, and so on. For instance, mayaro disease could mislead the untrained one into thinking it was chikungunya and vice versa.
Leonardo96 19 293
Actually "Most public hospitals operate in precarious conditions" implies pretty much the same if you read it carefully, "public hospitals operate poorly" would work,though.