Breakdown of Eu acordo de repente e o coração bate como se tivesse corrido uma maratona.
Questions & Answers about Eu acordo de repente e o coração bate como se tivesse corrido uma maratona.
In modern European Portuguese, “acordar” is normally used without the reflexive pronoun when it just means “to wake up” (intransitive use):
- Eu acordo cedo. – I wake up early.
The reflexive form “acordar-se” exists but is:
- much less common in everyday speech, and
- more likely to appear in older, literary, or regional usage.
So “Eu acordo de repente” is the natural, standard way to say “I wake up suddenly” in European Portuguese.
Yes. In Portuguese, subject pronouns are often dropped when the verb ending already shows the person:
- Eu acordo de repente → perfectly correct
- Acordo de repente → equally correct, often more natural
In normal narration, many speakers would actually prefer “Acordo de repente”, because it sounds less heavy and more fluent. The explicit “Eu” is used for emphasis or contrast (e.g., “Eu acordo, mas ele continua a dormir.”).
“De repente” is a fixed adverbial expression meaning “suddenly / all of a sudden”.
Typical positions:
- Acordo de repente.
- De repente, acordo.
Both are correct. At the very beginning (“De repente, …”) it sounds a bit more dramatic or literary, but it’s still common in speech. You do not say just “repente”; the “de” is part of the fixed expression.
Literally, “o coração” is “the heart”, but in context it’s clearly the speaker’s own heart. In Portuguese it’s common to:
- use the definite article with body parts, and
- omit the possessive when it’s obvious whose body part it is.
So:
- O coração bate = My heart is beating (here, clearly mine)
- O meu coração bate = also correct, but slightly more emphatic or emotional (e.g., in romantic or poetic contexts).
In your sentence, “o coração bate” sounds natural and not vague.
Both are possible, but they differ slightly:
- “O coração bate…” – simple present; in context it describes the current physical state vividly, a bit like English “my heart pounds”.
- “O coração está a bater…” – present progressive (European Portuguese form); focuses more on the ongoing process, less on the dramatic punch.
In this kind of emotional description, simple present is very natural and often preferred: “o coração bate como se…” feels direct and intense.
“Como se” = “as if” / “as though”.
When “as if” introduces a situation that is not actually true (a comparison, not a fact), Portuguese normally uses the subjunctive:
- O coração bate como se tivesse corrido uma maratona.
→ My heart is beating as if I had run a marathon (but I didn’t).
If it were describing something literally true, you could use the indicative:
- Ele fala como se soubesse tudo. (subjunctive → he doesn’t know everything)
- Ele fala como se sabe tudo. (indicative → he really does know everything; less common but possible)
In your sentence, it’s clearly a hypothetical comparison, so subjunctive (“tivesse corrido”) is standard.
“Tivesse corrido” is the pluperfect (past perfect) subjunctive.
Formation:
- Auxiliary in the imperfect subjunctive of “ter” (or haver, but here it’s ter):
- (eu) tivesse
- past participle of the main verb:
- corrido (from correr)
So:
- (eu) tivesse corrido = that I had run (in a hypothetical/subjective context).
Used after expressions that trigger subjunctive (like “como se”, “se”, “caso”, etc.) when referring to a prior completed action.
Both alternatives are ungrammatical or unnatural in this context:
- ✗ como se corri uma maratona
- After “como se” in this hypothetical sense, Portuguese expects the subjunctive, not the indicative “corri”.
- ✗ como se tinha corrido uma maratona
- “tinha corrido” is pluperfect indicative, again wrong mood here.
- It sounds odd because it suggests a real, factual past event, which clashes with the hypothetical “como se”.
For a contrary‑to‑fact or imagined comparison, you need:
- “como se tivesse corrido uma maratona”.
Yes, but there is a nuance:
“como se tivesse corrido uma maratona”
- Emphasises a completed past action: as if I had (already) run a marathon.
- Focus on the result (exhaustion, fast heartbeat).
“como se estivesse a correr uma maratona”
- Uses the continuous form in the imperfect subjunctive: as if I were running a marathon.
- Emphasises the ongoing act of running.
In your sentence, you’ve just woken up and you’re feeling the after‑effects, so “tivesse corrido” (completed action) is a bit more natural.
In Portuguese, countable singular nouns almost always need an article (or another determiner). “Maratona” here is a specific countable event (one race), so you use the indefinite article:
- uma maratona = a marathon
Leaving out the article (“como se tivesse corrido maratona”) sounds ungrammatical in standard Portuguese. You generally only drop the article in very restricted contexts (headlines, set expressions, etc.), not here.
You could say:
- Eu desperto de repente…, but it sounds more formal, literary, or old‑fashioned.
In everyday European Portuguese:
- “acordar” is the normal, neutral verb for “to wake up”.
- “despertar” is often used in more figurative or literary contexts:
- despertar sentimentos – awaken feelings
- O barulho despertou‑me. – The noise awakened me. (more formal)
So your original “Eu acordo de repente…” is the most natural for ordinary speech or narrative.
You could say:
- “e o meu coração está a bater muito” (or “muito depressa” = very fast),
but the original “e o coração bate” is:
- shorter and more vivid,
- closer to how people naturally narrate sudden physical sensations.
The intensity is expressed not by “muito”, but by the whole comparison “como se tivesse corrido uma maratona”. That simile already carries the idea of “extremely fast/hard”, so a plain “bate” is enough.
The sentence is perfectly understandable and acceptable in both European and Brazilian Portuguese.
Small tendencies:
- In Brazilian Portuguese, some speakers might prefer the gerund for the progressive:
- “o coração está batendo…” (instead of EP “está a bater”),
but your sentence doesn’t use the progressive anyway.
- “o coração está batendo…” (instead of EP “está a bater”),
- The structure “como se tivesse corrido uma maratona” is natural in both varieties.
So the line works well in either variety; nothing in it sounds marked as strictly one or the other.