Ao chegar à recepção, a hóspede perguntou pela bagagem.

to arrive

Breakdown of Ao chegar à recepção, a hóspede perguntou pela bagagem.

• à: at the
• perguntar: to ask
• ao: upon

Questions & Answers about Ao chegar à recepção, a hóspede perguntou pela bagagem.

What does ao chegar literally mean, and why is ao used here?

Ao chegar literally means upon arriving or when arriving.

Here, ao is the contraction of a + o, and this structure ao + infinitive is very common in Portuguese. It often expresses the idea of:

• when doing something
• upon doing something
• as soon as someone does something

So:

• Ao chegar à recepção... = When she arrived at the reception/front desk...

It is a more compact way to say something like:

• Quando chegou à recepção...

Both are natural, but ao + infinitive is a very common written and spoken pattern.

Why is the subject not repeated in ao chegar?

In Portuguese, when you use ao + infinitive, the subject is often left unstated if it is the same as the subject of the main clause.

So in:

• Ao chegar à recepção, a hóspede perguntou pela bagagem.

the person who arrived is understood to be the same person who asked: a hóspede.

English often makes this relationship explicit in other ways, but Portuguese commonly leaves it implied.

Why is it à recepção and not just a recepção?