Breakdown of O corpo precisa de descansar depois do exercício físico.
Questions & Answers about O corpo precisa de descansar depois do exercício físico.
In European Portuguese, the verb precisar normally requires the preposition de before its complement:
- precisar de + noun
- O corpo precisa de descanso. – The body needs rest.
- precisar de + infinitive
- O corpo precisa de descansar. – The body needs to rest.
So precisa de descansar is the standard, grammatically “complete” form in Portugal.
In Brazilian Portuguese, people very often drop the de before an infinitive (precisa descansar), but in Portugal the version with de is what you’ll hear most and what you’ll see in careful writing.
In European Portuguese it’s generally seen as:
- less standard / less formal
- strongly influenced by Brazilian usage
Many speakers in Portugal will understand it and some might say it in casual speech, but if you’re learning European Portuguese, you should treat precisar de + infinitive as the “correct” pattern:
- ✅ O corpo precisa de descansar… (recommended)
- ❌ O corpo precisa descansar… (avoid in EP; common in BP)
Both are correct, but they emphasize slightly different things:
precisar de descansar – focuses on the action of resting
- O corpo precisa de descansar.
→ The body needs to rest (needs to engage in the activity of resting).
- O corpo precisa de descansar.
precisar de descanso – focuses on the state / thing (rest)
- O corpo precisa de descanso.
→ The body needs rest (it lacks rest).
- O corpo precisa de descanso.
In most contexts they’re interchangeable, but:
- de descansar can sound a bit more dynamic (the body needs to perform the action).
- de descanso can sound slightly more static or clinical (the body needs a period of rest).
Portuguese uses the definite article (o, a, os, as) much more than English, especially:
- with generic nouns (talking about a type or class of thing)
- with parts of the body and many abstract nouns
So:
- O corpo precisa de descansar.
Literally: The body needs to rest.
But in English we say: The body / Your body needs to rest.
Saying Corpo precisa de descansar (without o) sounds incomplete or like a headline or label, not a normal sentence.
So for generic statements, keep the article:
- O corpo humano é complexo. – The human body is complex.
- A água é essencial. – Water is essential.
In European Portuguese, you normally keep the definite article even with a possessive:
- O meu corpo precisa de descansar. – My body needs to rest.
Using meu corpo without o is possible, but in EP it’s:
- more marked / emphatic (e.g. poetic, stylistic), or
- influenced by Brazilian style.
For everyday speech in Portugal, prefer:
- o meu corpo, a minha cabeça, os meus pés, etc.
Portuguese contracts prepositions with definite articles. Here:
- depois de (after) + o (the, masculine singular)
→ depois do
Similarly:
- de + o → do
- de + a → da
- de + os → dos
- de + as → das
So the full breakdown is:
- depois de
- o exercício físico
→ depois do exercício físico (after the physical exercise)
- o exercício físico
Yes:
- O corpo precisa de descansar depois do exercício.
This is perfectly natural and often used. The difference:
- exercício – any exercise (physical, school exercises, training tasks, etc.)
- exercício físico – specifically physical exercise / workout
In a context where it’s obvious you mean physical exercise (gym, sports, running), exercício alone is usually enough. exercício físico just makes it explicit.
In this sentence:
- corpo – masculine → o corpo
- exercício – masculine → o exercício
- exercício físico – masculine phrase → o exercício físico
You see this from the article:
- o corpo, o exercício, o exercício físico
Unlike English, grammatical gender is mostly arbitrary and must be memorized with the noun. A helpful habit is to learn nouns with their article:
- o corpo, a cabeça, o exercício, a atividade, etc.
Yes, that’s completely fine and common:
- Depois do exercício físico, o corpo precisa de descansar.
Word order is flexible with time expressions. Moving it to the front puts a bit more emphasis on the time frame (after exercise…) but doesn’t change the basic meaning.
Depois on its own is an adverb meaning afterwards / later:
- Depois falamos. – We’ll talk later.
When you want to say after [something], you use depois de:
- depois de comer – after eating
- depois da aula – after the class
- depois do exercício físico – after the physical exercise
So the pattern is:
- depois de + noun / pronoun / infinitive
→ depois do exercício físico (depois de + o = do)
Portuguese, like English, uses the simple present to state general truths or regular facts:
- O corpo precisa de descansar depois do exercício físico.
→ The body needs to rest after physical exercise (this is always true).
If you change the tense:
- O corpo precisou de descansar… – The body needed to rest… (in a specific past situation)
- O corpo vai precisar de descansar… – The body will need to rest… (in a future situation)
So the present here expresses a general rule, not a single event.
Approximate guide (EP pronunciation, using English-like approximations):
- precisa → pruh-SEE-zuh
- c before i sounds like s, not k.
- precisa de → pruh-SEE-zuh d(ɨ)
- de often reduced to something like a very short, weak dɨ.
descansar → dshk-un-SAR
- Initial des- often pronounced with a very light vowel and the s may sound like sh / shk in fast EP speech.
- depois → d(ɨ)-POYSH
- Final -s sounds like sh in EP.
- do → doo (but short)
- exercício → (i)-zer-SEE-syoo
- Initial e can be very reduced; x here sounds like z.
- físico → FEE-zee-koo
Spoken quickly, parts link together:
- precisa de descansar ≈ pruh-SEE-zuh dɨ dshk-un-SAR
- depois do exercício físico ≈ dɨ-POYSH doo i-zer-SEE-syoo FEE-zee-koo