Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.

It doesn’t literally mean “the Pedro”; it’s just a normal, neutral way to refer to someone. In conversation, you’ll hear this all the time in Portugal.

In Brazilian Portuguese, using the article with names is much less common and can sound regional or marked. A Brazilian would more naturally say just Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.

So in Portugal:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho. – completely natural
Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho. – also possible, but often sounds a bit more “formal” or written.

What verb form is chega, and what does the infinitive chegar look like in the present tense?

Chega is:

3rd person singular
Present indicative
From the verb chegar (to arrive)

The full present tense of chegar is:

eu chego – I arrive
tu chegas – you arrive (singular, informal, mainly in Portugal)
ele / ela chega – he / she arrives
você chega – you arrive (polite in Portugal; common “you” in Brazil)
nós chegamos – we arrive
eles / elas chegam – they arrive
vocês chegam – you (plural) arrive

So O Pedro chega = Ele chega = He arrives / He gets there.

Why is the verb chegar followed by a, as in chega ao trabalho?

In European Portuguese, the usual preposition after chegar (to express destination) is a:

chegar a casa – to arrive (at) home
chegar à escola – to arrive at the school
chegar ao trabalho – to arrive at work

In the sentence:

chega ao trabalho = chegar a + o trabalho → ao trabalho

So ao is a contraction:

a (to/at) + o (the, masculine singular) → ao

Note: a horas in this sentence is not governed by chegar in the same way; a horas is an idiomatic time expression (“on time”), separate from chegar a(o) + place.

What does a horas mean literally, and why is it plural?

The expression chegar a horas means “to be on time” / “to arrive on time”.

Literally:

a – “at / to” (here, part of a fixed expression)
horas – “hours”

Historically/roughly, it’s like saying “at (the right) hours”, but in modern Portuguese you should just treat:

chegar a horas as an idiomatic expression = “to arrive on time”.

Why plural horas?

Because in Portuguese, references to clock time commonly use the plural, even for a specific time:

São três horas. – It’s three o’clock.
Chega às nove horas. – He arrives at nine o’clock.

The idiom fossilised with horas in the plural, and that’s just the fixed form: a horas (on time).

Why is it a horas and not à horas with a grave accent?

À (with a grave accent) is a contraction of:

a (to/at) + a(s) (the, feminine)

For example:

à escola = a + a escola – to the school
às cinco horas = a + as cinco horas – at five o’clock

But in a horas (meaning “on time”), there is no article. It is not “to the hours”, it’s just a fixed idiomatic phrase.

So:

a horas – idiomatic, no article → “on time”
às horas – would mean “at the hours” (very odd here; not idiomatic)

Therefore, the correct form is a horas, without the accent.

What’s the difference between a horas, a tempo, and something like à hora certa?

All can relate to being on time, but usage differs:

chegar a horas
– Very common in Portugal.
– Neutral, everyday way to say “arrive on time”.
chegar a tempo (de + infinitive)
– Means “in time (to do something)”, with a nuance of before it’s too late:
- Cheguei a tempo de apanhar o autocarro. – I arrived in time to catch the bus.
- More about being just in time to still do something, not about punctuality to a schedule.
chegar à hora certa
– Literally “arrive at the right hour/time”
– Slightly more formal / emphatic way to say “arrive at the correct time”.

So in your sentence O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho:

Focus is on punctuality (he is regularly/on that day on time for work), not specifically about catching/doing something “in time”.

Why is it ao trabalho and not no trabalho or para o trabalho? What’s the difference?

All three combinations can exist, but they mean different things:

ao trabalho = a + o trabalho
- Literally “to work” / “to his job” as a destination.
- With chegar, this expresses where he arrives:
  - chegar ao trabalho – arrive at work (arrive at the workplace).
no trabalho = em + o trabalho
- Means “at work” (location where he is).
- You’d use it with verbs expressing being/doing something there:
  - O Pedro está no trabalho. – Pedro is at work.
  - Ele fuma no trabalho. – He smokes at work.
para o trabalho
- Often means towards work / for work (direction or purpose):
  - O Pedro vai para o trabalho. – Pedro is going to work.
  - Ele sai cedo para o trabalho. – He leaves early for work.

So:

chegar ao trabalho = the moment of arriving there.
estar no trabalho = being there.
ir para o trabalho = going there (movement towards).

Can I change the word order and say O Pedro chega ao trabalho a horas?

Yes. Both are grammatical:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.
O Pedro chega ao trabalho a horas.

In Portuguese, adverbial expressions of time and place are relatively flexible. However:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.
– Slightly more common, with a horas (time/punctuality) closer to the verb.
O Pedro chega ao trabalho a horas.
– Also fine; some speakers might prefer time → place right after the verb, but this is more about style than strict grammar.

In everyday speech, you’ll mostly hear the original order with a horas immediately after chega.

Could you drop the article and say Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho in Portugal? Would that sound wrong?

You can say:

Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.

It is grammatically correct, and you’ll see it in writing (news, more formal/neutral texts).

However, in everyday spoken European Portuguese, the version with the article is more natural:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho.

Omitting the article can sound:

a bit more formal, or
like written style, or
sometimes like you are listing names (e.g., in a report: Pedro chega a horas; Maria chega atrasada.)

So it’s not wrong; it’s just less colloquial in Portugal.

How would a Brazilian Portuguese speaker most likely say this sentence?

In Brazilian Portuguese, you’d usually drop the article before the name and may tweak the time expression. Possible natural versions:

Pedro chega no trabalho na hora. (very common, colloquial)
Pedro chega ao trabalho na hora. (also possible, more formal/standard)
Pedro chega no trabalho no horário. (emphasis on schedule)

Differences:

Many Brazilians use chegar em
- place (chegar no trabalho) in speech, though in more formal writing chegar a / ao is often recommended.
a horas meaning “on time” is more typical in Portugal; Brazilians more often say na hora, no horário, or no horário certo.
Article before name: Pedro, not O Pedro, in most regions of Brazil.

So your original sentence is very clearly European Portuguese (Portugal) in style.

How do you pronounce chega and trabalho in European Portuguese?

In European Portuguese:

chega
- ch = [ʃ], like English sh in “ship”
- e = more closed, like the e in “bed”, but often a bit shorter
- ga = [gɐ] (the a often reduced to [ɐ], a kind of neutral vowel)
- Rough guide: "SHE-gɐ", with stress on the first syllable: CHÊ-ga.
trabalho
- tra-: tr more rolled or tapped r, between English t+r and Spanish tr
- ba-: bɐ, a often reduced to [ɐ]
- -lho: the lh is [ʎ], similar to the lli in Italian “famiglia” or the ll in some pronunciations of Spanish “llama”; the final o is often very reduced or almost [u].
- Rough guide: "trɐ-BA-lyu", stress on ba: tra-BÁ-lho.

In careful IPA (European Portuguese, approximate):

chega → [ˈʃe.ɡɐ]
trabalho → [tɾɐˈba.ʎu]

How would you say the same thing using a pronoun instead of the name, and how do you make it negative?

Using a pronoun:

Ele chega a horas ao trabalho. – He arrives on time at work.

To make it negative, Portuguese uses não before the verb:

Ele não chega a horas ao trabalho.
– He doesn’t arrive on time at work.
O Pedro não chega a horas ao trabalho.
– Pedro doesn’t arrive on time at work.

Word order stays the same; you just insert não immediately before the conjugated verb (chega).

How do you turn this into a yes–no question in European Portuguese?

In everyday spoken European Portuguese, yes–no questions are usually formed just by intonation, without changing word order:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho?
– Does Pedro arrive on time at work? / Does he get to work on time?

You simply raise your intonation at the end.

You can also add a tag question for confirmation:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho, não é?
– He gets to work on time, right?

More formal or written options (less common in speech) can use inversion with the pronoun, but not with a full noun like O Pedro. For your sentence, the natural way is simply:

O Pedro chega a horas ao trabalho?