Teacher Discussion Forums

I've just come across this sentence

1)She has a serious boyfriend.

I think it's a straight translation from Portuguese into English. The idea would be she has one boyfriend and does not go out with any other guy. Is it possible to convey this meaning with (1)? If not, how could I have it in English and what do you understand by (1)?

Thanks

José

Usually that would be assumed, but you could say for example "She has a serious boyfriend but she still fools around with other men".

She is strongly committed/very faithful to her boyfriend?

You might ask someone if they are 'serious about someone' (that someone here being their bf/gf, obviously), and they'd probably have been a 'steady' bf/gf to each other for a while by then. But surely the standard line is 'I (already) have a bf/gf' rather than 'I have a serious bf/gf' (=a bf/gf who is serious?!). Or one could get and be engaged. So, nothing completely wrong about José's sentence, but does it sound completely right? (I myself would need to check some more, but am a bit busy to do more than come up with the few examples off the top of my head there).

Forty to fifty years ago, you would say steady boyfriend to indicate a serious relationship. I would say that the phrase serious boyfriend is now more common, but google turns up more results for the former. Regardless, I would advise you to use the direct translation. The meaning is clear, and I don't know if young people these days even know what "going steady" means. http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/going%20steady

Thanks for that, Ouyang! I've simply got to get more serious about keeping up with the younger generation. It's a wonder I can still type, at 38!

Serious boyfriend didn't cause me to raise an eyebrow and I'm in my mid thirties.

Maybe she has a serious boyfriend and a silly one. That would be the best of both worlds