Breakdown of No laboratório da faculdade, foi feita uma experiência com plantas sem luz.
Questions & Answers about No laboratório da faculdade, foi feita uma experiência com plantas sem luz.
No here is not the word for “no / not” (não).
- No = em + o → “in the / at the” (masculine singular).
- So No laboratório literally means “In the laboratory” or “At the laboratory”.
The word that means “no / not” is não, which is completely different in spelling and function.
Portuguese almost always contracts prepositions with definite articles.
- em + o → no
- em + a → na
- em + os → nos
- em + as → nas
Since laboratório is masculine singular (o laboratório), em o laboratório must contract to no laboratório.
So:
- No laboratório = em o laboratório = “in the / at the laboratory”
Writing em o laboratório without contracting is considered wrong or at least very unnatural.
da is a contraction of de + a → da (“of the / from the”, feminine singular).
- da faculdade = de a faculdade → “of the faculty/college”
So:
- No laboratório da faculdade = “In the laboratory of the faculty/college”
(i.e., the lab that belongs to the college/university).
If you said na faculdade (em + a = na), that would mean:
- No laboratório na faculdade ≈ “In the lab at the college”
This suggests “in some lab that happens to be located at the college”, whereas
da faculdade highlights ownership/association: it’s the college’s lab.
In European Portuguese, faculdade usually means:
- a faculty or school within a university (e.g., faculdade de medicina = medical school),
- or more loosely, a college.
Universidade is the whole institution. So:
- faculdade ⟶ part of the university (like “Faculty of Sciences”),
- universidade ⟶ the entire university.
In everyday speech, people might say faculdade a bit like “college” in English:
“Estou na faculdade” = “I’m in college / at uni.”
The subject is uma experiência (“an experiment”).
The sentence is in passive voice, and Portuguese often puts the subject after the verb in this kind of structure:
- foi feita uma experiência
literally: “was done an experiment”
→ “an experiment was done / an experiment was carried out”
So the structure is:
- [No laboratório da faculdade], [foi feita] [uma experiência] [com plantas sem luz].
Location – passive verb – subject – extra information.
In the passive voice with ser + past participle, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject.
- Subject: uma experiência → feminine singular.
- Past participle of fazer: feito (masc. sing.) / feita (fem. sing.) / feitos / feitas.
So:
- Uma experiência foi feita (feminine) ✅
- Um teste foi feito (masculine) ✅
If you said foi feito uma experiência, that would be grammatically wrong, because feito (masculine) doesn’t agree with experiência (feminine).
Yes, you can say:
- Uma experiência foi feita no laboratório da faculdade com plantas sem luz.
This is grammatically correct and means the same thing.
The version in your sentence:
- No laboratório da faculdade, foi feita uma experiência…
is more neutral and common in written narrative in Portuguese.
Placing the subject after the verb in the passive (foi feita uma experiência) is very natural, especially when the subject is a longer or heavier phrase. It’s a matter of style and rhythm, not meaning.
- foi feita (pretérito perfeito) = a completed event in the past:
“An experiment was carried out (on one occasion).” - era feita (pretérito imperfeito) = a habitual or ongoing past action:
“An experiment used to be done / was being done (regularly or continuously).”
In your sentence, we’re talking about one specific experiment that was done, so foi feita is the correct tense.
com is used here with the sense of “with / using / involving”:
- uma experiência com plantas = “an experiment with plants / using plants”
Alternatives:
- em plantas would sound more like “on plants” in the sense of “occurring on their surface” (not natural in this context).
- nas plantas (“in/on the plants”) would also sound odd here; it suggests location rather than “using plants as the experimental material”.
For scientific experiments, experiência com X (“experiment with X”) is the standard way to say “experiment with X”.
sem luz literally means “without light”.
In the context of plants and experiments, sem luz usually implies no light source (or no significant light), which is exactly what matters biologically.
- sem luz = without light (focus on the presence/absence of light)
- no escuro = “in the dark” (focus on the state of darkness)
Both could sometimes describe a similar situation, but sem luz sounds more scientific / technical, which fits this sentence about an experiment.
No escuro is more everyday language: “in the dark (room/corner/etc.)”.
In Portuguese, after sem (“without”), it’s very common to omit the article when talking about something in a general, non-specific sense.
- sem luz = “without light (in general)”
- sem a luz would sound like “without the light” (a specific known light source).
In a scientific context, we normally mean “without light in general”, so sem luz is the natural choice.
Both can refer to a scientific experiment, but usage differs:
- In Portugal, experiência is the normal word for a scientific experiment.
- fazer uma experiência = to do an experiment
- In Brazil, experimento is more common in a scientific/technical context, though experiência is also widely used.
So, in European Portuguese, using experiência for a lab experiment is standard and natural.
If you said experimento in Portugal, people would understand, but it sounds more Brazilian or more marked as technical.