The main problem here isn’t really empurrar, but puxar. When a Brazilian pronounces puxar, especially its conjugations (puxou, puxei, puxa, puxe), it sounds like push in English. At that moment, our brain betrays us and understands the sound as to push, when actually a Brazilian is saying to pull, because the main meaning of puxar is to pull.
Empurrar
We’ll start with the English counterpart: empurrar meaning to push. A nice way to remember that is by using a simple mnemonic: to push in Portuguese is the opposite of puxar. Let’s see the examples.
Você tem que empurrar por fora!
You have to push it from the outside!
Ele me empurrou!
He pushed me!
A perda da esposa empurrou ele pras drogas.
The loss of his wife pushed him to drugs.
O Maurício empurrou a namorada pra dentro da piscina.
Maurício pushed his girlfriend into the pool.
A gente teve que empurrar o carro ladeira acima.
We had to push the car up the hill.
Ele empurrou café quente garganta abaixo.
He pushed hot coffee down his throat.
Ele só precisou de um empurrãozinho.
He needed just a nudge.
Puxar
And here we have our little troublemaker: puxar meaning to pull. The guy responsible for breaking glass doors; you are going to see ‘empurre’ and ‘puxe’ on glass doors all over Brazil, and you will know what it means.
Ele puxou a cadeira.
He pulled the chair.
Eles estavam puxando a corda tão forte que ela quebrou.
They were pulling the string so hard that it broke.
O assaltante puxou o gatilho, mas a bala não me acertou.
The mugger pulled the trigger, but the bullet didn’t hit me.
Minha mulher puxou meu cabelo.
My wife pulled my hair.
Ela puxou ele pela camisa.
She pulled him by the shirt.
Quando a gente vai replantar, a gente puxa as plantas mais velhas pela raiz.
When we replant, we pull the older plants by the root.
Ele me puxou pra fora da lama.
He pulled me out of the mud.
Não puxe a mesa.
Don’t pull the table.
That’s it! As you can see, false friends can also happen phonologically (puxar and to push). Even tough they have different written forms, the pronunciation is so close that causes a lot of confusion, especially in native English speakers. But now you should know the difference between the two. Time to test your knowledge. Hope you liked! Te vejo no próximo post!