Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Mal cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou pelo exame. - As soon as I arrived home, my mother asked about the exam.

Mal cheguei a casa ≈ As soon as I got home / No sooner had I got home
It introduces a time relation: something happened immediately after you arrived.

Contrast:

mau = bad (adjective: a bad day, bad person, etc.)
- um mau filme – a bad film
mal = usually badly (adverb) or as soon as / hardly in this specific structure
- Ele fala mal português – He speaks Portuguese badly
- Mal cheguei, ele saiu – As soon as I arrived, he left

So in this sentence, think of mal as a trigger for a “no sooner… than…” type structure in English.

Why is it cheguei a casa and not cheguei em casa or just cheguei casa?

In European Portuguese:

chegar a [lugar] = to arrive at / to [place]

So:

cheguei a casa – I arrived home
cheguei a Lisboa – I arrived in Lisbon
cheguei ao trabalho – I arrived at work

Key points:

You normally need a preposition with “chegar”
You don’t say ✗ cheguei casa; you need a:
- chegar a casa, chegar a Lisboa, etc.
“a casa” vs “em casa”
- a casa (motion): to home (arriving there)
  - Vou a casa, cheguei a casa
- em casa (location): at home (being there)
  - Estou em casa, Fico em casa hoje
European vs Brazilian Portuguese
- In Portugal, chegar a is standard: chegar a casa, chegar a Paris
- In Brazil, chegar em is common in speech: chegar em casa, chegar em São Paulo
  (But chegar a is also used, especially in more formal language.)

So cheguei a casa is the standard European Portuguese form for “I arrived home.”

Why is it a minha mãe and not just minha mãe?

In European Portuguese, it is very common to put the definite article before possessives:

a minha mãe – my mother
o meu pai – my father
a minha casa – my house
os meus amigos – my friends

So:

Mal cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou…
sounds completely natural and is probably more frequent in Portugal than
Mal cheguei a casa, minha mãe perguntou…

Notes:

In Brazilian Portuguese, the article is much less common with close family members:
- minha mãe, meu pai are more typical there.
In European Portuguese, you can drop the article in some contexts for stylistic or emotional reasons, but with family words like mãe, pai, a minha mãe is very standard, neutral speech.

So a minha mãe is simply the normal European way of saying “my mother.”

What does perguntar pelo exame mean exactly? Why por and not sobre or de?

Perguntar por here means “to ask about / ask after” something.

perguntar pelo exame
= to ask about the exam (to want to know how it went, what the result was, etc.)

The structure is:

perguntar por + o exame → perguntar pelo exame
(por + o = pelo, a contraction)

Some nuances:

perguntar por X
- Often means: to ask about X / ask for news of X
- A tua mãe perguntou por ti – Your mum asked after you / asked about you.
- Ele perguntou pelo teste – He asked about the test.
perguntar sobre X
- More literally ask about, often a bit more formal or topic-like:
- Perguntaram sobre política – They asked about politics.
perguntar de X
- Not normally used for this meaning; ✗ perguntar de X is usually incorrect in this sense.

So in this sentence, perguntou pelo exame is the natural way to say “asked about the exam.”

What is pelo exactly? Is it a separate word?

Pelo here is a contraction of a preposition and an article:

por + o = pelo
(Plural: por + os = pelos)

So:

perguntar por o exame
→ in real Portuguese becomes
→ perguntar pelo exame

Other examples:

pelo livro = por + o livro (for/by the book)
pelos amigos = por + os amigos (for/by the friends)

It’s not the same as the noun pelo (“hair” as in animal hair or body hair), though it’s spelled the same. The meaning is clear from context.

Could I say “Assim que cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou pelo exame” instead? Is there any difference from “Mal cheguei a casa…”?

Yes, you can say that, and it’s natural:

Assim que cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou pelo exame.
= As soon as I got home, my mother asked about the exam.

Difference in nuance:

mal
- verb (in this time sense)
- Very idiomatic, slightly more expressive
- Often feels a bit more immediate / dramatic:
  - Mal cheguei, ela começou a chorar. – No sooner had I arrived than she started crying.
assim que
- Also common, maybe a bit more neutral in tone
- Very close in meaning to “as soon as”

Functionally, both mean “as soon as”, and in this sentence you can use either without really changing the basic meaning. “Mal cheguei…” may sound a bit more vivid or story-like.

Why is the verb cheguei in the past simple and not something like a past perfect (tinha chegado)?

In Portuguese narrative, it is very normal to use the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past) for a sequence of completed past actions:

Mal cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou pelo exame.
Literally: As soon as I arrived home, my mother asked about the exam.

Both verbs (cheguei, perguntou) are in the same tense:

cheguei – I arrived
perguntou – she asked

The temporal relation (“first I arrived, then she asked”) is made clear by mal (as soon as), not by changing the tense.

You could theoretically make something like:

Mal tinha chegado a casa, a minha mãe perguntou…

but this is much less common and can sound heavier or more literary. In everyday language, pretérito perfeito simples is the default for “X happened, then Y happened”.

Is the comma after “Mal cheguei a casa” required? Could I change the order?

The comma is standard and natural here because “Mal cheguei a casa” is a subordinate clause placed before the main clause:

Mal cheguei a casa, a minha mãe perguntou pelo exame.

You can change the order:

A minha mãe perguntou pelo exame mal cheguei a casa.

This is also possible and understood as:

My mother asked about the exam as soon as I got home.

When “mal cheguei a casa” comes after the main clause, the comma is often dropped in informal writing; punctuation can vary, but:

A minha mãe perguntou pelo exame mal cheguei a casa.
A minha mãe perguntou pelo exame, mal cheguei a casa. (more clearly marked as a clause)

Both are readable. With the clause at the start (as in your sentence), the comma is expected.

Could it also be “A minha mãe perguntou-me pelo exame”? Why is there no me in the original?

Yes, “A minha mãe perguntou-me pelo exame” is perfectly correct and perhaps even more explicit:

A minha mãe perguntou-me pelo exame.
– My mother asked me about the exam.

Structure:

perguntar (algo) a alguém
- A minha mãe perguntou (alguma coisa) a mim.
- With clitic pronoun: A minha mãe perguntou-me…

In the original sentence, the me is simply understood from context and left out:

A minha mãe perguntou pelo exame.
= We understand she asked me, but Portuguese doesn’t always need to spell that out if it’s obvious.

Both versions are grammatically correct:

perguntou pelo exame – asked about the exam (implicitly to me)
perguntou-me pelo exame – asked me about the exam (explicitly)

Does mal always mean “as soon as” when it appears before a verb like this?

Not always, but in this kind of structure it usually does.

Patterns where mal = “as soon as / no sooner than”:

Mal cheguei, ele saiu. – As soon as I arrived, he left.
Mal começou o filme, eles chegaram. – As soon as the film started, they arrived.

However, mal has other common uses:

Adverb = badly / poorly
- Ele fala mal português. – He speaks Portuguese badly.
Adverb = hardly / barely (negative-ish)
- Eu mal dormi. – I hardly slept.
Noun / adjective meaning evil or harm
- O bem e o mal. – Good and evil.

In your sentence, the pattern mal + [past tense verb] at the start of the sentence is a strong clue that it means “as soon as / no sooner than.”