Contactei a linha de avarias.

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Breakdown of Contactei a linha de avarias.

• contactar: to contact
• a linha de avarias: a telephone line for reporting utility faults

Questions & Answers about Contactei a linha de avarias.

What tense is contactei?

Contactei is the 1st person singular form of contactar in the pretérito perfeito simples.

That means it refers to a completed action in the past: I contacted.

So:

• contacto = I contact / I am contacting (depending on context, but usually present)
• contactei = I contacted
• contactava = I used to contact / I was contacting

In this sentence, contactei tells you the action happened and was completed.

Why is there no eu in the sentence?

Portuguese often omits the subject pronoun when it is clear from the verb ending.

In contactei, the ending -ei already shows that the subject is I.

So both are possible:

• Eu contactei a linha de avarias.
• Contactei a linha de avarias.

The second version is very natural and common. Portuguese does this much more often than English.

Why is it a linha? Is a a preposition here?