Word
Hoje o parque está vazio, mas ontem estava cheio de crianças.
Meaning
Today the park is empty, but yesterday it was full of children.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of Hoje o parque está vazio, mas ontem estava cheio de crianças.
estar
to be
hoje
today
mas
but
de
of
Questions & Answers about Hoje o parque está vazio, mas ontem estava cheio de crianças.
Why is it está vazio and not é vazio?
In Portuguese, estar is used for temporary states and conditions, while ser is used for more permanent or defining characteristics.
- O parque está vazio = The park is empty right now (temporary situation).
- O parque é vazio would sound like “The park is (inherently) empty / hardly ever has people,” a more permanent trait, and would be unusual here.
So está vazio fits because you’re describing how the park is today, not what it is like in general.
Why is it ontem estava cheio and not ontem foi cheio?
Portuguese uses the imperfect (estava) to describe past situations that are seen as background, ongoing, or descriptive, especially with time expressions like ontem, naquele dia, etc.
- Ontem estava cheio de crianças = “Yesterday it was (generally) full of children” – a description of the situation during that time.
- Ontem foi cheio de crianças sounds odd; foi (preterite) with cheio doesn’t work well here. You’d use foi cheio more in figurative expressions like Foi um dia cheio (“It was a busy/full day”).
So estava is the natural choice for “was (in that state)” in this context.
Why is there no subject pronoun before estava? Why not ontem ele estava cheio…?