Breakdown of Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
Questions & Answers about Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
Estava is in the pretérito imperfeito (imperfect past), and tocou is in the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past).
Ela estava prestes a adormecer
→ The imperfect (estava) describes a background situation or an action that was in progress:
She was about to fall asleep (ongoing state at that moment).quando o telemóvel tocou
→ The perfect (tocou) describes a completed event, something that happened once and is seen as a whole:
when the phone rang (sudden, complete action that interrupts the background).
So the structure is:
- background action in the imperfect: estava prestes a adormecer
- interrupting event in the perfect: o telemóvel tocou
This is very common in Portuguese:
Eu lia um livro quando ele chegou. – I was reading a book when he arrived.
You can say quando o telemóvel tocava, but it changes the meaning.
quando o telemóvel tocou
→ one specific ringing, a single event in the past.quando o telemóvel tocava
→ describes a repeated or ongoing action in the past: whenever the phone would ring / used to ring.
So:
Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
→ There was one particular time she was about to fall asleep and the phone rang.Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocava.
→ Sounds odd in isolation; it suggests something like “when(ever) the phone rang, she was about to fall asleep”, a repeated pattern. Context would need to support that idea.
For the usual “She was about to fall asleep when the phone rang”, tocou is the natural choice.
Portuguese uses the pretérito perfeito (tocou) much more often where English uses the past perfect (“had rung”).
- quando o telemóvel tocou
literally: when the phone rang
functionally: can correspond to English when the phone rang or sometimes when the phone had rung, depending on context.
Quando o telemóvel tinha tocado is grammatically possible but unusual here. It would sound more like:
- “When the phone had already finished ringing…” – emphasising that the ringing was before another past event and fully completed.
In this sentence, the two actions are very close in time (ringing interrupts the almost-sleep), so Portuguese doesn’t need the past perfect. The simple tocou is enough to show the order.
Estar prestes a + infinitive means to be about to do something / to be on the point of doing something.
Structure:
- [subject] + estar + prestes a + [infinitive]
Examples:
- Ela está prestes a sair. – She is about to leave.
- Estamos prestes a começar. – We are about to start.
- O avião estava prestes a aterrar. – The plane was about to land.
It suggests that the action is imminent, very close to happening, but hasn’t happened yet.
In your sentence:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer
= She was just about to fall asleep.
Both are very close in meaning and both are natural.
estar prestes a adormecer
→ slightly more formal / literary, emphasizes being on the very verge of falling asleep.estar quase a adormecer
→ more everyday and colloquial, like “was almost falling asleep”.
You could say:
- Ela estava quase a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
This sounds perfectly natural and is very commonly used in speech.
In Portuguese:
- adormecer = to fall asleep (the transition from awake to asleep)
- dormir = to sleep (the state of sleeping)
So:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer
→ She was about to fall asleep (she is still awake but almost sleeping).
If you said:
- Ela estava prestes a dormir
it would sound less natural and a bit off; dormir focuses on the state, not the moment of “going under”. For that adormecer is the right verb.
The a here is a preposition required by the expression estar prestes a.
The pattern is:
- estar prestes a + [infinitive]
The preposition a does not mean “to” in a general sense; it belongs to this fixed structure (just like pensar em, gostar de, etc., where the preposition is tied to the verb/expression).
Compare:
- estar prestes a sair – to be about to leave
- estar prestes a chorar – to be about to cry
- estar prestes a adormecer – to be about to fall asleep
So the a is not optional; it’s part of the construction.
In the expression estar prestes a, the word prestes is invariable: it does not change with gender or number.
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer.
- Ele estava prestes a adormecer.
- Eles estavam prestes a adormecer.
- Nós estávamos prestes a sair.
In all of these, prestes stays the same.
You don’t say “ela estava presta a…” – that would be incorrect.
Historically, prestes comes from a word meaning “ready” in the plural, but in modern usage, in this expression, you just memorize the fixed form estar prestes a.
Yes. Portuguese is a null-subject language, so the subject pronoun is often omitted when it’s clear from context.
You could say:
- Estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
This is natural if the context already makes it clear that you’re talking about her (or about some previously mentioned person). The verb form estava alone doesn’t show gender, but it does show that the subject is singular.
If you want to be very clear at the start of a story or sentence, you might use Ela; later on, you can omit it.
O here is the definite article (“the”), not a possessive.
- o telemóvel = the phone
- It does not literally say “her phone”, but in context it is understood as her phone, because that’s the obvious phone in the situation.
In Portuguese, common countable nouns normally need a determiner (article, demonstrative, possessive, etc.). Saying just “quando telemóvel tocou” is ungrammatical.
Possible options:
- quando o telemóvel tocou – when the phone rang
- quando o meu telemóvel tocou – when my phone rang
- quando o seu telemóvel tocou – when her/his/your (formal) phone rang
Using just o telemóvel is the most neutral and natural way to say “the phone” in this context.
telemóvel
- European Portuguese
- Specifically means mobile phone / cell phone
- Masculine: o telemóvel
telefone
- Used in both Portugal and Brazil
- General word for telephone; can be mobile or landline, depending on context.
celular (or telefone celular)
- Brazilian Portuguese
- The usual word for mobile phone in Brazil
- Masculine: o celular
So the sentence:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
is clearly European Portuguese because of telemóvel. In Brazil you would more likely hear:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o celular tocou.
or - …quando o telefone tocou. (context then clarifies it’s a mobile)
Yes. Both orders are correct and natural:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
- Quando o telemóvel tocou, ela estava prestes a adormecer.
The meaning is the same. The difference is just which part you choose to emphasize first:
- Starting with Ela estava prestes… highlights her state, then what interrupted it.
- Starting with Quando o telemóvel tocou… highlights the phone ringing, then explains in what situation she was.
In the original order:
- Ela estava prestes a adormecer quando o telemóvel tocou.
There is no comma before quando. This is the usual punctuation.
If you invert the order and start with the quando-clause, then you do normally use a comma:
- Quando o telemóvel tocou, ela estava prestes a adormecer.
So:
- [Main clause] + quando + [subordinate] → normally no comma
- Quando + [subordinate], [main clause] → usually comma after the subordinate clause
Approximate pronunciation in European Portuguese:
telemóvel → /tɛ-lɛ-ˈmɔ-vɛɫ/
- Stress on mó: te-le-MÓ-vel
- ó is an open “aw” sound.
- Final -vel has a dark l (like British “full”).
adormecer → /ɐ-dɔɾ-mɨ-ˈseɾ/
- Stress on cer: a-dor-me-CER
- The first a in a- is very reduced, like the ‘a’ in English “about”.
- r in dor is a single tap, like the Spanish soft r.
- Final -cer has an /e/ sound (not “sir”, more like “seh”).
If you listen to European Portuguese speakers, you’ll notice a lot of vowel reduction in unstressed syllables (like e and a becoming very short and “closed”).