Breakdown of O Pedro está atrás de Maria na fotografia.
Questions & Answers about O Pedro está atrás de Maria na fotografia.
Está comes from the verb estar, which we use for temporary states and locations. Since we’re describing where Pedro is in the photo, we use estar.
- É (from ser) would be wrong for location.
- Ficar can describe where something is located (e.g. O restaurante fica na rua X), but for people’s positions in photos, estar is far more idiomatic. Saying Pedro fica atrás de Maria na fotografia would sound awkward.
atrás means behind, and when you want to say behind something or someone, you always add the preposition de:
• atrás de Maria = “behind Maria”
You cannot drop de—Pedro está atrás Maria is ungrammatical. The pattern is always atrás de + noun/pronoun.
You only contract de + o/a when the following noun has its own article. With a proper name like Maria, we normally don’t use an article there, so it stays de Maria. If you had a common noun with an article, you would contract:
• atrás da casa = “behind the house”
But for Maria, there’s no article, so it stays atrás de Maria.
- atrás de describes a straightforward, visible position behind someone or something (as in a photo).
- por trás de often implies “behind” in a more hidden or figurative sense, e.g. por trás de um segredo (“behind a secret,” “underlying”).
You wouldn’t use por trás de for a simple spatial relation in a picture.
na = em + a.
- em means “in/on.”
- a is the feminine singular definite article “the.”
So na fotografia literally means “in the photograph.”
Yes. foto is the colloquial, shortened form of fotografia. Both are correct, and most people say na foto in everyday speech:
• O Pedro está atrás de Maria na foto.
Typically, yes:
- Brazilians usually drop the article before names: Pedro instead of O Pedro.
- They also favor foto over fotografia in casual contexts.
You’d likely hear: Pedro está atrás de Maria na foto.
Absolutely. Moving na fotografia to the front is perfectly grammatical and simply shifts the emphasis to the setting:
• Na fotografia, o Pedro está atrás de Maria.
Yes, you can. Placing atrás de Maria at the start topicalizes that phrase. It’s less neutral and more emphatic or stylistic, but still correct:
• Atrás de Maria está o Pedro.