Breakdown of Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
Questions & Answers about Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
Nos últimos dias literally means in the last days, and idiomatically in the last few days / over the last few days.
- em = in / on
- os = the (masculine plural)
- em + os → nos (a standard contraction)
You normally cannot say em últimos dias in this sense; you need the definite article:
- ✅ nos últimos dias
- ❌ em últimos dias
So nos is just em + os, and os is required because Portuguese typically uses the definite article with expressions like os últimos dias, os últimos anos, etc.
In Brazilian Portuguese, ter + past participle (tenho estudado) usually describes an action that:
- has been happening repeatedly or continuously
- up to now, often with a sense of habit in a recent period
So:
- Eu tenho estudado português.
≈ I have been studying Portuguese (recently / a lot lately).
By contrast:
- Eu estudei português.
≈ I studied Portuguese. (a finished event in the past, with no focus on repetition or continuity)
With nos últimos dias, eu tenho estudado fits well because you are talking about what has been happening over this recent period, not just one finished action.
Both can translate as I have been studying, but they focus on slightly different things:
Eu estou estudando português.
- Focus: what you are doing right now / around now.
- Often used even if you mean these days / currently.
Eu tenho estudado português.
- Focus: repeated or sustained action during a recent period.
- Implies you have done it many times or regularly in the last days/weeks.
With nos últimos dias:
- Nos últimos dias eu estou estudando português... – understandable, but less natural.
- Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português... – sounds very natural: “In the last few days I’ve been (regularly) studying Portuguese…”
The pattern is:
[ter] in the present tense + past participle
So:
- eu tenho estudado – I have been studying
- ela tem desenhado – she has been drawing
Present tense of ter (singular):
- eu tenho – I have
- você / ele / ela tem – you / he / she has
Then add the past participle:
- estudar → estudado
- desenhar → desenhado
- comer → comido
- fazer → feito (irregular)
This is called pretérito perfeito composto in Portuguese, but remember:
in Brazilian Portuguese it typically means have been doing (repeatedly / lately), not just have done once as in English.
Because after ter in this tense, Portuguese uses the past participle, not the -ndo (gerund) form.
- tenho estudado (ter + past participle)
- estou estudando (estar + gerund)
Compare:
Eu tenho estudado português.
→ literally I have studied Portuguese (with a repeated/ongoing sense).Eu estou estudando português.
→ I am studying Portuguese (right now / these days).
So:
- estudado / desenhado = past participles (used with ter here)
- estudando / desenhando = gerunds (used with estar)
Not in this construction.
With ter (or haver) as an auxiliary verb, the past participle is invariable:
- Eu tenho estudado.
- Nós temos estudado.
- Ela tem desenhado.
- Elas têm desenhado.
In all of these, estudado and desenhado stay the same.
They only change gender/number when used as adjectives or with ser/estar in passive sentences:
- A lição foi estudada. – The lesson was studied.
- Os desenhos foram desenhados por ela. – The drawings were drawn by her.
But in tenho estudado / tem desenhado, they do not agree; they stay in the same base form.
Yes. In Portuguese, subject pronouns are often dropped when the verb form already makes the subject clear.
All of these are correct:
- Nos últimos dias tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
- Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
- Nos últimos dias tenho estudado português no sofá e tem desenhado no jardim. (the last one is grammatical but the subject of tem desenhado can become ambiguous in some contexts)
Using eu and ela just adds clarity or emphasis. In everyday Brazilian speech, people mix both styles (with and without subject pronouns) quite freely.
You might see something like that in very formal or literary texts, but in everyday Brazilian Portuguese it sounds unnatural or overly literary.
In normal speech and writing, you would repeat the auxiliary:
- Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim. ✅ (natural)
Dropping the second tem is common in English (I have been studying and she drawing), but not in neutral Brazilian Portuguese.
In Portuguese:
Names of languages are written with a lowercase initial:
- português, inglês, espanhol, francês
Names of nationalities used as adjectives are also lowercase:
- uma comida brasileira, um escritor português
They are only capitalized when they are part of a proper name (like a book title, course name, etc.).
So in this sentence, português is correctly not capitalized.
With verbs like estudar, falar, aprender, ensinar, it is very common in Portuguese to omit the article before the language:
- Estudo português.
- Ela fala inglês.
- Ele está aprendendo espanhol.
You can sometimes hear o português, o inglês, etc., but:
- in general, no article is more common and sounds more natural here, especially after estudar.
So:
- ✅ tenho estudado português
- ❌ tenho estudado o português (not wrong, but sounds marked/odd in this everyday context)
No is a contraction:
- em + o → no (masculine singular)
- em + a → na (feminine singular)
- em + os → nos
- em + as → nas
So:
- no sofá = em + o sofá → on the couch / on the sofa
- no jardim = em + o jardim → in the garden / in the yard
You very rarely use the full em o in modern Portuguese; you almost always contract it to no.
Portuguese em (and its contractions no / na / nos / nas) covers the meanings of both English in and on (and sometimes at). Which English preposition you choose in translation depends on the noun:
- no sofá → literally in/on the couch, but in English we say on the couch / on the sofa.
- no jardim → in the garden / in the yard.
So:
- em / no / na do not map 1:1 to in / on / at.
- You learn usual combinations:
- no sofá, na cama – on the sofa, in bed
- no jardim, no parque – in the garden, in the park
- na escola – at school / in school, etc.
Yes, it is quite flexible. All of these are possible:
- Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
- Eu tenho estudado português no sofá nos últimos dias e ela tem desenhado no jardim.
- Eu tenho estudado português no sofá e ela tem desenhado no jardim nos últimos dias.
Typical and most natural are:
- at the beginning for emphasis on time:
Nos últimos dias eu tenho estudado... - or after the verb phrase:
Eu tenho estudado português no sofá nos últimos dias.
Putting nos últimos dias at the very end usually makes it sound like the whole sentence (both actions) has happened in the last few days.
Yes, it sounds natural and clear.
It implies:
- Over the last few days,
- you have repeatedly / regularly been studying Portuguese on the couch,
- and she has repeatedly / regularly been drawing in the garden.
If you were simply reporting one or two finished events in the past, you would more likely use the simple past:
- Nos últimos dias eu estudei português no sofá e ela desenhou no jardim.
(sounds more like a summary of finished actions, less like “this has been our recent habit.”)