Breakdown of É necessário cozinhar o almoço antes de sair de casa.
ser
to be
o
the
a casa
the house
de
of
sair
to leave
necessário
necessary
cozinhar
to cook
almoço
lunch
antes
before
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Questions & Answers about É necessário cozinhar o almoço antes de sair de casa.
Why does the sentence use É necessário instead of something like Precisa or É preciso?
All three (É necessário, Precisa, and É preciso) can express the idea of “it is necessary.” É necessário is a bit more formal or emphatic, while Precisa (from Precisar) can be interpreted as more colloquial. É preciso also works similarly to É necessário, but you might hear it more commonly in everyday speech compared to the slightly more formal É necessário.
Why do we use cozinhar in the infinitive form here?
When using expressions like É necessário, we typically follow them with the infinitive form of the verb if the subject is not explicitly stated. It remains impersonal and does not reference a specific person. That’s why cozinhar (to cook) is used in its base form, without conjugation for a specific subject.
What is the function of antes de in this sentence?
Antes de literally means “before.” It introduces a verb or action that should happen prior to another event. Here, it highlights that cooking lunch must be done before leaving the house. The de is used because the preposition antes is followed by an infinitive verb or a noun in Portuguese.
Why is the sentence structured as antes de sair de casa instead of antes de saímos de casa?
In Portuguese, when the subject of both verbs (cooking lunch and leaving the house) is the same, the usual structure is antes de + infinitive: antes de sair (before leaving). Using a conjugated verb after antes de would be ungrammatical in this impersonal construction. If you specifically want to refer to “we leave the house,” you could restructure the sentence differently, but it wouldn’t have this same impersonal flow.