Breakdown of O relatório foi revisado pela gerente antes da reunião.
Questions & Answers about O relatório foi revisado pela gerente antes da reunião.
Why is it foi revisado instead of just revisou?
Because this sentence is in the passive voice.
- foi revisado = was reviewed / was revised
- The focus is on o relatório (the report), not on who did the action.
Compare:
O relatório foi revisado pela gerente.
= The report was reviewed by the manager.
Passive voiceA gerente revisou o relatório.
= The manager reviewed the report.
Active voice
In Portuguese, a very common passive pattern is:
So here:
- foi = past of ser
- revisado = past participle of revisar
What exactly does revisado mean here?
Revisado is the past participle of revisar.
Depending on context, revisar can mean:
- to review
- to revise
- to check
- sometimes to proofread
In O relatório foi revisado, the best English choice is often was reviewed or was revised, depending on the context you were given.
Why is it revisado and not revisada?
Because revisado agrees with o relatório, which is masculine singular.
In Portuguese, the past participle used like this usually agrees with the noun it describes in gender and number.
- o relatório → masculine singular → revisado
- a proposta → feminine singular → revisada
- os relatórios → masculine plural → revisados
- as propostas → feminine plural → revisadas
So:
- O relatório foi revisado.
- A proposta foi revisada.
Why does gerente use pela gerente if the word ends in -e?
Why is it pela gerente and not por a gerente?
Because por + a contracts to pela.
This is a very common Portuguese contraction:
- por + o = pelo
- por + a = pela
- por + os = pelos
- por + as = pelas
So:
- pela gerente = por a gerente
In passive sentences, por often introduces the agent, just like by in English:
- foi revisado pela gerente = was reviewed by the manager
Why is it antes da reunião and not just antes a reunião?
Because antes normally uses de before a noun.
So the full structure is:
- antes de + a reunião
And de + a contracts to da:
- antes da reunião
Other examples:
- antes do almoço = before lunch
- antes da aula = before class
- antes de sair = before leaving
So antes da reunião literally comes from antes de a reunião, but the natural form is the contraction da.
What does da mean exactly?
Is this sentence formal?
Yes, it sounds fairly neutral-to-formal, and very natural in written Portuguese.
Why?
- The passive voice (foi revisado) is common in reports, business language, news, and formal writing.
- The noun relatório also sounds like workplace or academic vocabulary.
A more direct, less formal version would be:
- A gerente revisou o relatório antes da reunião.
Both are correct and natural. The passive version simply sounds a bit more impersonal and report-like.
Could Brazilians also say this in the active voice?
Yes, absolutely. A very common active version is:
- A gerente revisou o relatório antes da reunião.
This means the same thing, but the emphasis changes:
- Passive: focus on the report
- Active: focus on the manager
In everyday speech, Portuguese often prefers the active voice, just like English does. But the passive is also very normal, especially in formal contexts.
What tense is foi revisado?
It is the simple past passive.
Breakdown:
- foi = third person singular of ser in the pretérito perfeito
- revisado = past participle
So the whole expression means:
- was reviewed
- was revised
It refers to a completed action in the past.
Can foi revisado mean both was reviewed and has been reviewed?
Sometimes, depending on context, yes.
Portuguese and English do not always match tense-for-tense exactly. In many cases, Portuguese uses the simple past where English might choose either:
- was reviewed
- has been reviewed
But in this sentence, because of antes da reunião, the most natural English interpretation is usually:
- was reviewed before the meeting
That clearly places the action before another past event.
Why does the sentence start with O relatório?
Because that is the topic or focus of the sentence.
Since this is a passive sentence, the thing affected by the action comes first:
- O relatório = the thing being reviewed
That is exactly how passive voice works in English too:
- The report was reviewed by the manager.
If you wanted to focus on the person doing the action, you would usually switch to the active voice:
- A gerente revisou o relatório.
Is relatório masculine just because it ends in -o?
Why is it da reunião? Is reunião feminine?
How do you pronounce relatório and reunião?
A simple approximate guide for Brazilian Portuguese:
- relatório ≈ heh-lah-TOH-ryoo
- reunião ≈ heh-oo-nee-OW̃
A few useful notes:
- The r at the beginning of a word in Brazilian Portuguese often sounds like an English h.
- tó in relatório carries the stress: re-la-TÓ-rio
- ão is nasal, which is very important in reunião
A rough stress guide:
- re-la-TÓ-rio
- re-u-ni-ÃO
Is pela gerente optional, like in English passive sentences?
Yes. Just like English, Portuguese can omit the person who did the action if it is unknown, obvious, or unimportant.
So you can say:
- O relatório foi revisado antes da reunião.
That means:
- The report was reviewed before the meeting.
If you include pela gerente, you are specifically naming who did it.
Could antes da reunião go somewhere else in the sentence?
Yes. Portuguese word order is flexible, especially with time expressions.
All of these are possible:
- O relatório foi revisado pela gerente antes da reunião.
- Antes da reunião, o relatório foi revisado pela gerente.
- O relatório, antes da reunião, foi revisado pela gerente.
(possible, but less neutral)
The most natural neutral choices are usually:
- O relatório foi revisado pela gerente antes da reunião.
- Antes da reunião, o relatório foi revisado pela gerente.
The first sounds more straightforward. The second puts extra emphasis on the time.
Could I say A relatório or a reunião without the article in this sentence?
- A relatório is incorrect because relatório is masculine, so it must be o relatório.
- reunião needs the feminine article in this sentence because it appears inside da reunião, where da = de + a.
So the sentence needs:
- O relatório
- da reunião
Portuguese uses articles very often, sometimes more often than English does.
Is there anything especially important for an English speaker to notice in this sentence?
Yes — several useful Portuguese patterns appear here all at once:
- foi revisado = was reviewed
- revisado matches o relatório
Contractions
- o relatório
- a gerente
- a reunião
Time expression
- antes da reunião = before the meeting
It is a great sentence for noticing how Portuguese packs grammatical information into articles, participles, and contractions.
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