Breakdown of O árbitro apita no início e no fim do jogo.
Questions & Answers about O árbitro apita no início e no fim do jogo.
Apita is the 3rd‑person singular present of apitar, which means to blow a whistle / to whistle (with a whistle).
In Portuguese you often use the verb apitar instead of saying blow the whistle with a separate noun. So:
- O árbitro apita.
= The referee blows the whistle. (literally: “the referee whistles”, but it’s understood that it’s with the match whistle)
The noun apito means whistle (the object), but you don’t need to say it here.
You could say O árbitro toca o apito or O árbitro sopra o apito, but O árbitro apita is the most natural and usual form.
In European Portuguese, you normally keep the definite article (o, a, os, as) before singular countable nouns, even when English would drop the.
- O árbitro apita… = The referee blows…
Saying just Árbitro apita… sounds incomplete or like a newspaper headline, not normal speech.
So in most neutral sentences about specific people or things, include the article:
- O professor explica. – The teacher explains.
- A médica chega. – The doctor arrives.
In European Portuguese, árbitro is pronounced approximately:
- [ˈaɾ.bi.tɾu]
Key points:
- Stress is on the first syllable: ÁR-bi-tro.
- The r in the middle (between vowels) is a tapped r, similar to the single r in Spanish: a quick flick of the tongue.
- The final -o is often a fairly closed sound, close to -u: not “troh”, but more like “tru”.
- The t is a plain t, not “tch”: ár-bi-tro, not ár-bitcho.
So you get something like “AR-bi-tru” with a quick light r sounds.
Apita is:
- Present indicative, 3rd person singular (he/she/it):
ele / ela / o árbitro apita
Present tense of apitar (European Portuguese):
- eu apito – I blow the whistle
- tu apitas – you blow the whistle (informal singular)
- ele / ela / você apita – he / she / you (formal) blow(s) the whistle
- nós apitamos – we blow the whistle
- vocês apitam – you (plural) blow the whistle
- eles / elas apitam – they blow the whistle
In the sentence, O árbitro apita…, the subject is ele (he), so apita is the correct form.
Yes, grammatically you can. Portuguese is a “null-subject” language: you often drop the subject pronoun (or noun) when it’s clear from context.
- (O árbitro) apita no início e no fim do jogo.
If everyone already knows you’re talking about the referee, omitting O árbitro is fine in context, especially in narration or commentary.
However, as a complete, stand‑alone sentence introducing the idea, O árbitro apita… sounds more natural.
No is a contraction of:
- em + o → no
- meaning roughly in the / at the / on the (for masculine singular nouns)
So:
- no início = em + o início = at the beginning
- no fim = em + o fim = at the end
- no jogo = em + o jogo = in the game
These contractions are obligatory in normal usage. You don’t say em o início; you must say no início.
Other forms:
- em + a → na (feminine singular)
- em + os → nos (masculine plural)
- em + as → nas (feminine plural)
Portuguese allows you to avoid repeating the same complement when it clearly applies to both parts of a coordination.
The “full” version would be:
- O árbitro apita no início do jogo e no fim do jogo.
But since do jogo (of the game) is the same for both início and fim, you can say:
- O árbitro apita no início e no fim do jogo.
It’s understood as no início (do jogo) e no fim do jogo.
This omission of the repeated part is very common and completely natural.
Início and começo are very close in meaning: both mean beginning / start.
- início – slightly more formal or neutral; very common in writing and speech
- começo – slightly more colloquial; also very common
In this sentence, you could absolutely say:
- O árbitro apita no começo e no fim do jogo.
The meaning is the same. In European Portuguese, início is maybe a bit more frequent in this kind of neutral, general statement, but começo is also perfectly natural.
Do is a contraction of:
- de + o → do
- meaning of the / from the (masculine singular)
So:
- do jogo = de + o jogo = of the game
In contrast:
- no = em + o = in the / at the / on the
In the sentence:
- no início – at the beginning
- no fim – at the end
- do jogo – of the game
So the structure is literally:
at the beginning and at the end of the game.
In Portuguese, the simple present is used for:
- general truths / rules / habits
- scheduled or regularly repeated actions
Here O árbitro apita no início e no fim do jogo describes what referees generally do in a match. That’s a rule or habit, so the present apita is exactly right.
English can also use the simple present for this (“The referee blows the whistle at the start and at the end of the game”), so the usage is actually parallel here.
In Portuguese, every noun has a grammatical gender, usually masculine or feminine. In this sentence:
- árbitro – masculine (referee)
- início – masculine (beginning)
- fim – masculine (end)
- jogo – masculine (game)
The articles and adjectives must agree with that gender, so you get o árbitro, o início, o fim, o jogo.
If the referee is a woman, you change the noun (and the article) to the feminine:
- A árbitra apita no início e no fim do jogo.
Only árbitro → árbitra and o → a change; the rest of the sentence stays the same.
You can say O árbitro sopra o apito, and it’s understandable:
- soprar = to blow
- apito = whistle (object)
So it literally means The referee blows the whistle.
However, in natural Portuguese (especially in a sports context), people almost always use:
- O árbitro apita.
This is shorter and idiomatic. O árbitro sopra o apito sounds more descriptive or literary, not wrong, but much less common in everyday speech and in sports commentary.