"stay" vs "ficar"

In Portuguese,   the verb "ficar" is used in many situations.  Brazilian learners of English tend to mix this up, basically using "stay" to describe many things. Sometimes it works, many times it doesn't. Some examples:

Fiquei muito cansado ontem =  I was/got very tired yesterday 

Vc pode ficar com isso = Keep this!

The list of examples could be long,  let's look at 3 definitions of "stay":

·         to spend some time in a place, in a situation, with a person or group, etc.: He stayed in the army for ten years.

·         to continue to be as specified, as to condition or state: to stay clean.

·         to hold out or endure, as in a contest or task (followed by with  or at ): Please stay with the project as long as you can.

As you can tell from the above definitions, the verb at times translates perfectly with "ficar":  I stayed at my girlfriend's house last night.

But keep in mind that there are many more uses in Portuguese for "ficar" than for "stay"  in English.

Stay also forms some phrasal verbs:

Stay up

Stay over

Stay away (from something or someone)

Stay out

Stay on

We've found that often students could use the verb to be:

Fiquei muito feliz em ter feito uma Pós-Graduação :    I was very happy .....

fico muito decepcionado com o SPFC:    I'm very disappointed with SPFC.

We hope this helps!