Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Ele teve muita coragem para admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma. - He had a lot of courage to admit the mistake in front of the whole class.

Ele tem muita coragem…
→ He is very brave in general / he usually has a lot of courage. (present, general characteristic)
Ele tinha muita coragem…
→ He used to have a lot of courage or he had a lot of courage (habitually / over a period) (imperfect, background or repeated state)

So teve is used because the sentence is about one particular moment when he admitted the mistake in front of the class.

Why do we use “ter coragem” instead of “ser corajoso”?

Both exist, but they are not always interchangeable:

Ter coragem focuses on having courage in a given moment or situation.
→ Ele teve muita coragem para admitir o erro…
Emphasis: that specific act required courage.
Ser corajoso describes a general character trait.
→ Ele é muito corajoso.
Emphasis: he is a brave person in general.

You could say:

Ele foi muito corajoso ao admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma.

This is also correct, but ter coragem plus an infinitive (para admitir) is a very common idiomatic pattern in Portuguese to talk about the courage required to do a specific thing.

Why is it “muita coragem” and not “muito coragem”?

In Portuguese, muito/muita/muitos/muitas agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.

coragem is a feminine singular noun.
Therefore, you must use muita (feminine singular):
- muita coragem ✅
- muito coragem ❌

More examples:

muita sorte (luck – feminine singular)
muito trabalho (work – masculine singular)
muitos erros (mistakes – masculine plural)
muitas pessoas (people – feminine plural)

Why is it “para admitir” and not just “admitir”?

In Portuguese, when you express purpose (“in order to do something”), you normally use:

para + infinitive

So:

Ele teve muita coragem para admitir o erro…
→ He had a lot of courage in order to admit the mistake.

If you drop para, the sentence becomes ungrammatical in this structure:

Ele teve muita coragem admitir o erro… ❌ (wrong)

Portuguese generally requires a preposition before an infinitive in this kind of construction. Here, para clearly introduces the goal/purpose of that courage.

Is there a difference between “coragem para admitir” and “coragem de admitir”?

Both can be found in real usage, but there are nuances and preferences:

coragem para + infinitive
Very common and clearly expresses purpose or goal.
→ Teve coragem para admitir o erro.
coragem de + infinitive
Also used, often sounds a bit more like “the courage to dare to do something” or can feel slightly more informal in some contexts.
→ Teve coragem de admitir o erro.

In European Portuguese, coragem para admitir is very natural and slightly more neutral/formal. Coragem de admitir is also acceptable, but if you are unsure, para is a safe default in this sentence.

Why is it “admitir o erro” instead of just “admitir erro”?

Portuguese uses definite articles (o, a, os, as) much more often than English, especially with specific, known things.

o erro = the mistake (a particular mistake everyone knows about in the context).

Saying admitir erro without an article is unusual here and sounds incomplete or stylistically marked. You normally need the article:

admitir o erro ✅ (admit the mistake)
admitir um erro ✅ (admit a mistake / one mistake)
admitir erros ✅ (admit mistakes in general – plural, no article)

In this sentence, we’re talking about one specific mistake, so o erro is natural.

What is the nuance of “admitir” here? Is it like “confess”?

Admitir in this context means to acknowledge / to accept that something is true, especially something negative about yourself:

admitir o erro → to admit the mistake / to acknowledge being wrong.

Compared with other verbs:

confessar often has a stronger sense of confessing guilt, sometimes with a religious or legal flavour (confessar um crime, confessar um pecado).
assumir o erro is also common: to take responsibility for the mistake.

Here, admitir o erro is a very natural, neutral way to say “to admit the mistake” in European Portuguese, similar in tone to English “admit” rather than a dramatic “confess”.

What exactly is happening with “à frente de” and that accent on “à”?

À frente de is made from:

the preposition a (“to / at / in”)
plus the feminine article a (“the”)
→ they contract to à (with a grave accent): a + a = à

So:

à frente de literally: at the front of / in front of.

The grave accent (à) in Portuguese almost always shows this kind of contraction of “a + a” (or “a + as” → às), not stress.

Structure:

Ele teve coragem à frente de toda a turma.
→ He had courage in front of the whole class.

So à frente de is a fixed expression meaning in front of / before (people) in a physical or social sense.

What is the difference between “à frente de” and “em frente de” or other options like “diante de” and “perante”?

They can all be translated as “in front of / before”, but there are nuances:

à frente de
Common and fairly neutral; can be physical or social:
→ admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma (in front of the whole class)
em frente de
Often more spatial/physical:
→ O carro está estacionado em frente de casa. (parked in front of the house)
diante de
Slightly more formal/literary; can be physical or figurative:
→ admitir o erro diante de toda a turma (also fine, a bit higher register)
perante
Formal, often used in legal / institutional / solemn contexts:
→ admitir o erro perante o tribunal / perante toda a escola.

In everyday European Portuguese speech, à frente de and em frente de are very common. In this sentence, à frente de toda a turma sounds natural and colloquial-neutral.

Is “na frente de toda a turma” also possible instead of “à frente de toda a turma”?

Yes:

à frente de toda a turma ✅
na frente de toda a turma ✅

Both are understood as “in front of the whole class”.

Nuances:

na frente de (em + a frente de) is extremely common in spoken language, especially in Brazil, but it is also heard in European Portuguese.
à frente de may sound just a little bit more “standard” or slightly more “careful”/formal in some contexts, but in practice they often overlap.

For your level, you can treat à frente de and na frente de as near-synonyms here.

Why is it “toda a turma” and not “toda turma” or “toda turma inteira”?

In Portuguese, when toda means “the whole / the entire”, you normally use:

toda + definite article + noun

So:

toda a turma = the whole class / the entire class.

Other examples:

toda a casa (the whole house)
todo o dia (the whole day)
todas as pessoas (all the people)

If you say toda turma without the article, it sounds wrong in this meaning:

toda turma ❌ (ungrammatical here)

You could also say:

a turma toda (the whole class) – same meaning, more colloquial word order.

“toda turma inteira” is not natural; toda a turma or a turma toda is what you want.

What exactly does “turma” mean here? Is it only a school “class”?

In this sentence, turma is:

a school class or group of students (e.g. everyone in the same year/section).

In European Portuguese, turma is used in a few ways:

School class:
→ a turma do 7.º B (class 7B)
Group of people who regularly do something together (less formal):
→ a turma do futebol (the football crowd / group)
→ vou sair com a turma (I’m going out with the group).

Here, given “admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma”, the default interpretation is the school class.

Can the word order change? For example, can I move “à frente de toda a turma” elsewhere?

Yes, Portuguese allows some flexibility in adverbial phrase position. All of these are possible:

Ele teve muita coragem para admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma.
Ele teve muita coragem, à frente de toda a turma, para admitir o erro.
À frente de toda a turma, ele teve muita coragem para admitir o erro.

Differences:

Putting “à frente de toda a turma” at the end (as in the original) is very natural and common.
Putting it at the beginning gives it extra emphasis: you highlight the fact that it was in front of everyone.
Inserting it in the middle with commas makes it a bit more written/formal in style.

For everyday speech, the original order is perfect.

Could I omit “Ele” and just say “Teve muita coragem para admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma”?

Yes, you can omit the subject pronoun ele if the context already makes it clear who you are talking about:

Teve muita coragem para admitir o erro à frente de toda a turma.

In Portuguese, the verb ending usually shows the subject, so subject pronouns (eu, tu, ele, ela, nós, vocês, eles, elas) are often dropped when the subject is obvious.

However:

Including Ele is very natural here and is often preferred at the start of a new sentence or when you want to be clear and emphatic about who did the action.
If there is any risk of ambiguity, it is safer to keep Ele.