Breakdown of A médica perguntou se a Maria era alérgica a algum medicamento.
Questions & Answers about A médica perguntou se a Maria era alérgica a algum medicamento.
The a in a médica is the feminine singular definite article “the”.
- médica = female doctor
- a médica = the (female) doctor
In Portuguese, you normally need the article with professions when you are talking about a specific person:
- A médica perguntou… = The doctor asked…
Without the article (Médica perguntou…) it would sound wrong in standard Portuguese.
Portuguese usually marks gender on profession nouns:
- médico = male doctor
- médica = female doctor
So a médica tells you the doctor is a woman. If it were a man, it would be o médico perguntou…
In European Portuguese, it’s very common to use a definite article before people’s first names:
- a Maria, o João, a Ana, o Pedro
It often sounds more natural and colloquial in Portugal. So:
- A médica perguntou se a Maria…
is the normal everyday way of saying it. In Brazilian Portuguese, this article before names is much less common and often sounds regional or informal.
Yes, grammatically you can say “…se Maria era alérgica…”, and it will sound more neutral or formal.
- In European Portuguese, a Maria is more typical in everyday speech.
- In more formal writing (or in some styles), people may drop the article and prefer Maria without a.
So both are correct, but a Maria sounds more like natural spoken Portugal Portuguese.
Here, se means “if / whether”, introducing an indirect yes/no question:
- A médica perguntou se… = The doctor asked if / whether…
It is not reflexive here (even though se is also used as a reflexive pronoun in other contexts). It simply marks that what follows is what was asked.
In Portuguese, for yes/no indirect questions you use se alone:
- Direct: “A Maria é alérgica a algum medicamento?”
- Indirect: A médica perguntou se a Maria era alérgica a algum medicamento.
You do not add que here. que is used for what/that clauses, but not for this kind of if/whether question in reported speech.
Both are actually possible:
- A médica perguntou se a Maria era alérgica…
- A médica perguntou se a Maria é alérgica…
Nuance:
- era alérgica: classic reported speech style, “backshifting” the tense because the asking happened in the past.
- é alérgica: emphasises that the allergy is a present, general fact that still holds now.
In everyday European Portuguese, many speakers use either form; both are understood as reported versions of “É alérgica…?”
Adjectives normally agree in gender and number with the noun:
- a Maria → feminine singular
- so we use alérgica (feminine singular)
Forms:
- alérgico – masculine singular (e.g. O João é alérgico.)
- alérgica – feminine singular (e.g. A Maria é alérgica.)
- alérgicos / alérgicas – plural forms
So alérgico would be wrong for a Maria.
Portuguese uses a with the adjective alérgico/alérgica to express “allergic to”:
- ser alérgico a algo = to be allergic to something
So:
- alérgica a algum medicamento = allergic to any medication / to some medication
Literally, a here corresponds to English “to.”
The preposition a only contracts with definite articles:
- a + o → ao
- a + a → à
- a + os → aos
- a + as → às
But algum is not a definite article; it’s an indefinite determiner meaning “some/any”. Because it’s not an article, there is no contraction:
- a algum medicamento (correct, no contraction)
- If it were o medicamento (the medicine), you’d get ao medicamento = a + o medicamento.
algum here can be translated as “any” or “some”, depending on context:
- alérgica a algum medicamento
- allergic to any medication? (general yes/no question)
- allergic to some medication? (implying there might be one)
In questions, especially like this, algum usually feels close to English “any”:
“Is Maria allergic to any medication?”
Yes, but the meaning and tone change:
- a algum medicamento = neutral, “to any/some medication” (normal wording).
- a medicamento algum = sounds more emphatic and is normally used in negative contexts, like “não é alérgica a medicamento algum” = she isn’t allergic to any medication at all.
So in this question sentence, you want the normal order: a algum medicamento.
You can, but there are some regional preferences:
- In Portugal, medicamento is the more neutral/common term, especially in medical or formal contexts.
- remédio is understood in Portugal, but sounds a bit more informal or old-fashioned; in Brazil, remédio is extremely common in everyday speech.
So for European Portuguese, alérgica a algum medicamento is the most natural-sounding, especially in a medical context.
Portuguese often drops subject pronouns when they are clear from context, because the verb form and previous nouns tell you who the subject is.
Here, a Maria is right before the verb, so ela (she) would be redundant:
- …se a Maria era alérgica… (normal, natural)
- …se a Maria ela era alérgica… (wrong)
- …se ela era alérgica… (possible if “ela” was already clear from context and you didn’t want to repeat “Maria”).
So omitting ela is normal and preferred here.
No. In Portuguese, you normally do not put a comma between the main verb and a “se”-clause that is its direct complement:
- A médica perguntou se a Maria era alérgica… ✅
- A médica perguntou, se a Maria era alérgica… ❌
The clause “se a Maria era alérgica a algum medicamento” is tightly connected to perguntou, so no comma is used.