Quando chove, o motorista segura o volante com as duas mãos.

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Breakdown of Quando chove, o motorista segura o volante com as duas mãos.

• quando: when
• chover: to rain
• as duas: both

Questions & Answers about Quando chove, o motorista segura o volante com as duas mãos.

Why does the sentence start with Quando chove? Does it mean when it rains or when it is raining?

It can mean either, depending on context, but in this sentence it most naturally has a general / habitual meaning:

• Quando chove = When it rains / Whenever it rains

Portuguese often uses the present tense for general situations and repeated actions. So this sentence sounds like a general statement about what a driver does in rainy conditions.

If you wanted to emphasize an action happening right now, Brazilian Portuguese might also use:

• Quando está chovendo... = When it is raining...

But Quando chove is very natural here.

Why is chove used without a subject pronoun?

Because chover is usually an impersonal verb when talking about weather.

So Portuguese says:

• Chove. = It rains / It’s raining.

The it in English does not refer to anything real; it is just a grammatical subject. Portuguese does not need that placeholder subject in weather expressions.

Other common examples:

• Está frio. = It is cold.
• Nevou ontem. = It snowed yesterday.

So Quando chove is completely normal, and you do not say ele chove.