Leasing

The fourth entry is a locação operacional, and Portuguese covers with one adjective a patch of ground where English keeps two and will not let them swap. Operacional does the whole job: a locação operacional, os custos operacionais, o risco operacional, a aeronave está operacional. English divides that ground down the middle, and the division is not about register but about meaning. « Operating » is the form that attaches to the running of a business and to the working parts of a thing: « an operating lease », « operating costs », « an operating system », « an operating theatre ». « Operational » says something else — that a thing is up and working, ready to be used: « the line is operational again », « operational readiness ». So the contract in this list is « an operating lease » and never « an operational lease », because the second would announce that the lease itself is in working order, which is not a thought anybody has about a contract. The trap is that the wrong choice produces a sentence nobody stumbles over: it reads as English, it parses, and it quietly reports a different fact.