In English, a pastel is a pale color, a painting done in pale colors, usually watercolors, or a kind of crayon used to make pale-colored marks, usually on paper.

What I expect you mean is something like a meat-filled fried turnover. These are not traditional foods in Great Britain and America, which is why they haven't had a handy name. They are traditional in India, and as Indian restaurants have become popular, English has borrowed the Hindi word samosa for them.

Tatoeba is enriched by the Portuguese sentences you contribute. When you add bad English translations to them, you set needless and unwanted traps for other Portuguese speakers who--like yourself--expect Tatoeba to contain reliable, standard English sentences that are accurate translations of the sentences they are linked to.

Sorry me, just I'm trying to help as much as I can. If you want, I can stop translating. In fact,, I'm a new user. So, I'm still learning "Tatoeba". I mean, I'm understanding how does this website works. Thanks.

I suggest "samosa" or "turnover" for "pastel" in English.

Your efforts are valued and appreciated. The best thing you can do is to help us with the big problem of making sure all our sentences and translations are of really good quality.

I'm very pleased that you are asking yourself, "What exactly should I be doing here on Tatoeba?"

Tatoeba is the same for everybody. At the same time it's different for everybody. We all want the same thing: "the real thing, the genuine article," meaning good sentences and accurate translations; but we all have different ideas about what "the real thing" really is.

We all agree that the things most native speakers say every day are included in what we want; so contributing things like that--in your native language--is always good.

I expect that most would agree that translation--even into one's native language--is tricky and difficult. First there's the problem of understanding: what do the words mean, what do they mean when they're put together in just this way? Then there's the problem of saying the same thing in your own language. If you just translate the words, you usually end up with something that may make sense, but nobody would say it like that; so you have to say it another way; but you must not lose the meaning. Sometimes it's easy, more often it's very tough. Sometimes, when we think we've got it just right, someone else doesn't think so. We don't always have to agree; but we always have to respect the opinions of native speakers.