Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): A professora explicou isso há poucos minutos. - The teacher explained that a few minutes ago.

explicou is the 3rd-person singular of explicar in the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past), used to describe a completed action at a specific moment in the past.

What does há mean in há poucos minutos?

Here, há is an impersonal form of the verb haver meaning “ago.” It indicates how much time has passed—so há poucos minutos translates as “a few minutes ago.”

Can I use faz poucos minutos or tem poucos minutos instead of há poucos minutos?

In European Portuguese, há is the standard choice (e.g. há cinco minutos). Faz (“faz cinco minutos”) and tem (“tem cinco minutos”) are more common in Brazilian Portuguese. In Portugal you’ll almost always hear há.

Could I say poucos minutos atrás instead of há poucos minutos?

Yes. poucos minutos atrás also means “a few minutes ago” and is perfectly natural in speech. há poucos minutos is slightly more formal or idiomatic in writing.

What’s the difference between poucos and alguns in time expressions?

Both mean “a few,” but poucos implies a smaller number or “only a few,” while alguns is more neutral. So há poucos minutos suggests “just a few minutes ago,” whereas há alguns minutos is more like “a few minutes ago” without extra emphasis.

Why is there no article before minutos?

After the impersonal haver (há), the time expression acts like an adverbial phrase. You never say há os cinco minutos, only há cinco minutos (or há poucos minutos).

Why is isso used instead of the direct object pronoun o?

isso is a demonstrative pronoun meaning “that (thing).” You could use o only if you had already named a specific masculine noun (e.g. explicou o problema → explicou-o). Here we just point to “that” explanation, so explicou isso sounds more natural.

Could I say A professora explicou-o há poucos minutos using the clitic -o?

Grammatically yes—since the verb follows the subject, enclisis (explicou-o) is allowed. But in spoken European Portuguese you’ll rarely hear enclisis here; most speakers prefer explicou isso.

Why does Portuguese use an article before professora, when in English we might drop “the”?

Portuguese typically places definite articles before professions and titles (e.g. a professora, o médico), even when referring to a specific person. English often omits “the” in that context, but Portuguese does not.

How is professora pronounced and where is the stress?

In European Portuguese it’s /pɾuˈfɛsuɾɐ/. The stress falls on the e of the second syllable (pro-FE-so-ra), and the first o is pronounced like [u], so it sounds roughly like “pru-FAY-soo-rah.”