Breakdown of A professora corrige os erros e escreve a resposta certa no quadro.
Questions & Answers about A professora corrige os erros e escreve a resposta certa no quadro.
Portuguese nouns usually have grammatical gender.
- professor = male teacher (masculine)
- professora = female teacher (feminine)
The definite article also changes with gender:
- o professor = the (male) teacher
- a professora = the (female) teacher
So A professora tells you the teacher is female, and article + noun agree in gender (both feminine) and number (both singular).
In standard Portuguese, you almost always use an article before a singular, specific person with a profession:
- A professora corrige os erros… ✅ (natural)
- Professora corrige os erros… ❌ (sounds incomplete/odd in neutral narration)
A professora means the teacher (a specific one already known in context).
Dropping the article like in English (“Teacher corrects the mistakes”) is not normal in Portuguese, except in very special styles (e.g., headlines, notes on a board, some regional speech):
- On a classroom door you might see: Professora Ana (like a title), but in a full sentence you’d still say A professora Ana corrige…
You could say Ela corrige os erros e escreve…, but once you’ve mentioned the subject clearly (A professora), Portuguese normally doesn’t repeat the subject pronoun if it’s obvious.
The pattern is:
- First time: A professora corrige os erros…
- Then: … e escreve a resposta certa no quadro.
(Subject is understood to still be a professora.)
Portuguese uses subject pronouns (ele, ela, etc.) less than English does, because the verb ending already indicates the subject (corrige, escreve = he/she/it/you-formal).
corrigir is the infinitive: to correct.
In the sentence, the subject is a professora (she), and the verb is in the present indicative, 3rd person singular:
- Eu corrijo – I correct
- Você/Ele/Ela corrige – you/he/she corrects
- Nós corrigimos – we correct
- Vocês/Eles/Elas corrigem – you (pl.)/they correct
So A professora corrige… literally means The teacher corrects… (present tense).
Using the infinitive corrigir here would be like saying The teacher to correct the mistakes in English — ungrammatical as a main verb.
It can cover both meanings, depending on context.
- A professora corrige os erros e escreve a resposta certa no quadro.
Could mean:- The teacher corrects the mistakes and writes the right answer on the board (habitually), or
- The teacher is correcting the mistakes and is writing the right answer on the board (right now).
If you really want to emphasize “right now”, you can use the progressive:
- A professora está corrigindo os erros e está escrevendo a resposta certa no quadro.
But often the simple present (corrige / escreve) is enough, and much more common in written language.
Portuguese uses definite articles (o, a, os, as) more often than English. os erros literally means the mistakes, referring to specific mistakes (for example, in the students’ exercises).
Compare:
- A professora corrige os erros.
The teacher corrects the (specific) mistakes. - A professora corrige erros.
Possible, but more generic or abstract: The teacher corrects mistakes (in general). This version is less typical in this classroom context.
In this sentence, os erros is natural because it’s talking about particular mistakes the students made.
It could say that, but it’s usually unnecessary. The context (a classroom) already makes it obvious whose mistakes they are: the students’. Portuguese often leaves out possessives when ownership is clear.
So:
- A professora corrige os erros.
Is normally understood as the students’ mistakes in a classroom setting. - A professora corrige os erros deles.
Adds emphasis that they belong to them (those people), useful only if there could be confusion.
The direct object is already expressed as a full noun phrase: os erros.
- A professora corrige os erros. ✅
You would use a pronoun instead of repeating os erros:
- A professora corrige os erros e depois os explica.
The teacher corrects the mistakes and then explains them.
Here, os replaces os erros in the second clause. You don’t normally say corrige os erros os; that would double the object.
Adjective position in Portuguese can change the nuance of meaning:
- resposta certa (adjective after noun) = the correct/right answer.
- certa resposta (adjective before noun) = usually a certain answer (non-specific), not “right answer” anymore.
So:
- a resposta certa = the correct answer
- uma certa resposta = a certain answer (some answer, not specified)
In this sentence, the idea is “the correct answer”, so the adjective comes after the noun: a resposta certa.
Here, both are possible with almost the same meaning:
- a resposta certa = the right/correct answer (very common, everyday)
- a resposta correta = the correct/accurate answer (a bit more formal/technical)
In school talk, resposta certa is extremely common and natural.
resposta correta might sound slightly more formal or bookish, but is also fine.
no is a contraction of em + o:
- em = in, on, at
- o = the (masculine singular)
So:
- em + o = no
- em + a = na
- em + os = nos
- em + as = nas
Because quadro is masculine singular (o quadro = the board), you must say no quadro, not na quadro.
no quadro can mean on the board or on the blackboard/whiteboard, depending on context.
quadro is a flexible word. Common meanings:
- In a classroom: o quadro = the (chalk)board / whiteboard.
- In a house or museum: um quadro = a framed picture/painting.
- Other specialized meanings (not relevant here).
In school contexts, no quadro almost always means on the board (chalkboard or whiteboard). You might also hear:
- quadro-negro = blackboard
- quadro branco = whiteboard
So no quadro is the natural short way to say “on the board” in a classroom sentence like this.
Yes:
- no quadro = on the board (unspecified type)
- no quadro branco = on the whiteboard
- no quadro-negro / no quadro negro = on the blackboard
The original sentence stays neutral; it doesn’t matter what kind of board it is. If you need to specify the type, you just add the adjective: quadro branco, quadro negro, etc.
In Portuguese, as in English, you normally don’t put a comma before e when it’s joining two verbs with the same subject in a simple sentence:
- A professora corrige os erros e escreve a resposta certa no quadro. ✅
(The teacher corrects the mistakes and writes the right answer on the board.)
A comma could appear in more complex structures, but not in this straightforward coordination of two actions by the same subject.
Yes. Both verbs share the same subject:
- A professora (subject)
corrige os erros (first verb + object)
e
escreve a resposta certa no quadro (second verb + object + complement)
This pattern is very common: mention the subject once, then coordinate several verbs with e, ou, etc., without repeating the subject.
Yes, you can swap the two coordinated actions without changing the grammar:
- A professora corrige os erros e escreve a resposta certa no quadro.
- A professora escreve a resposta certa no quadro e corrige os erros.
Both are correct. The difference is only in which action you present first, not in meaning or correctness. The original order just reflects the natural sequence in class: first correct, then write the answer.