O resultado surpreende o grupo.

The result surprises the group.

Breakdown of O resultado surpreende o grupo.

• o resultado: the result
• o grupo: the group
• surpreender: to surprise

Questions & Answers about O resultado surpreende o grupo.

Why is the article o used before both resultado and grupo?

In Portuguese (Portugal) you normally place the definite article before a noun when you refer to something specific or general. Here o resultado means “the result” (a specific result you have in mind) and o grupo means “the group” (that specific group). English often drops the article in similar cases (“Result surprises group”), but Portuguese keeps it.

What part of speech is surpreende and how is it formed?

surpreende is the 3rd-person singular, present-tense form of the verb surpreender (“to surprise”). You form it by taking the verb stem surpreend- and adding the present ending -e for “ele/ela/você.”

Why isn’t there a preposition before o grupo? Don’t we need something like a grupo?

surpreender is a transitive verb that takes a direct object, so you don’t use a preposition. In English you say “surprise someone” (no “to” or “with”), and in Portuguese it’s the same: surpreender alguém. If you use the reflexive form (surpreender-se), you would add com for the cause, as in surpreende-se com.

How would you say “The group is surprised by the result” instead?

You have two common options in European Portuguese: 1) Passive voice: O grupo é surpreendido pelo resultado.
2) Pronominal form: O grupo surpreende-se com o resultado.

Can I invert the word order to emphasize the result?

Yes. For emphasis you can use a cleft sentence:
É o resultado que surpreende o grupo.
This literally means “It is the result that surprises the group,” putting extra stress on o resultado.

Could I replace o grupo with a clitic pronoun?

Yes. You would replace the direct object with o (masculine singular) and attach it to the verb by enclisis:
O resultado surpreende-o.
However, you lose the explicit reference to “the group,” so you’d only use that if context already makes “the group” clear.

What about tense changes? How do I say “The result surprised the group” (past)?

Use the simple past (pretérito perfeito):
O resultado surpreendeu o grupo.
Here surpreendeu is the 3rd-person singular of surpreender in the preterite.

Is there a difference between surpreender and espantar?

They are close synonyms meaning “to surprise” or “to astonish,” but espantar can carry a slightly stronger sense of “to frighten” or “to shock.” surpreender is more neutral/formal, while espantar is more colloquial and dramatic.

Why isn’t there a “que” between resultado and surpreende?

You only use que as a conjunction or relative pronoun when you need to link clauses or add more information:
– Relative clause: O resultado que vimos ontem
– Complementizer: Disse que seria bom
Here it’s a simple subject-verb-object sentence, so no que is needed.