Passámos por uma casa cuja garagem ficava mesmo antes da curva.

Passar por is a very common expression meaning to pass by, to go past, or to go through depending on context.

So:

• Passámos por uma casa = We passed by a house

The preposition por is part of the expression.
You normally would not say just passámos uma casa in this meaning.

A few examples:

• Passámos por Lisboa. = We passed through Lisbon.
• Passei por tua casa. = I passed by your house.
• Temos de passar por ali. = We have to go through there.

Passámos is the 1st person plural preterite of passar:

• eu passei = I passed
• tu passaste
• ele/ela passou
• nós passámos = we passed
• vocês passaram
• eles/elas passaram

In European Portuguese, the accent in passámos helps show the stressed syllable and also distinguishes it in writing from passamos, which can be the present tense form:

• passamos = we pass
• passámos = we passed

So the accent is important here because the sentence is talking about a completed past action.

Cuja means whose.

In this sentence:

• uma casa cuja garagem...
  = a house whose garage...

It links two nouns and shows possession:

• the house
• its garage

So cuja garagem literally means whose garage.

This word belongs to the family:

• cujo — masculine singular
• cuja — feminine singular
• cujos — masculine plural
• cujas — feminine plural

Because garagem is feminine singular, the sentence uses cuja.

This is one of the most important things to remember about cujo/cuja.

It agrees with the thing possessed, not with the owner.

Here:

• casa = the owner/reference noun
• garagem = the thing belonging to the house

So we get:

• uma casa cuja garagem...

because garagem is feminine singular.

Compare:

• um homem cujo carro avariou = a man whose car broke down
  (carro is masculine singular)
• uma mulher cujas filhas estudam aqui = a woman whose daughters study here
  (filhas is feminine plural)

After cujo/cuja/cujos/cujas, Portuguese normally does not use an article.

So the correct structure is:

• cuja garagem
• cujo carro
• cujas janelas

Not:

• cuja a garagem
• cujo o carro

This is different from English, where whose is followed directly by the noun as well:

• whose garage
• whose car

So in that respect, cuja garagem works similarly.

Here ficava means something like:

• was located
• was situated
• lay

So:

• cuja garagem ficava mesmo antes da curva = whose garage was located just before the bend

In Portuguese, ficar is often used to say where something is or was situated:

• A escola fica perto da estação. = The school is near the station.
• O hotel ficava ao lado da praia. = The hotel was next to the beach.

So this is not really become here. It is the location meaning of ficar.

Both verbs can relate to location, but they are not always equally natural.

In this sentence, ficava is the most natural choice because it describes where the garage was situated in relation to the curve.

• ficava antes da curva = it was located before the bend

If you said estava, it would sound more like simply saying it was there, but ficar is especially common when giving a more fixed or descriptive location.

A rough distinction:

• ficar = to be located / to lie / to be situated
• estar = to be, often focusing on presence or state

So ficava is very idiomatic here.

This is a very common Portuguese pattern.

• Passámos is preterite: a completed action in the past
  → We passed by
• Ficava is imperfect: background description, ongoing state, or setting
  → the garage was situated...

So the sentence combines:

1. a main event: we passed by a house
2. a description of that house: its garage was just before the bend

This is similar to English, where one verb gives the event and another gives the background:

• We passed by a house whose garage was just before the bend.

Portuguese uses this contrast very often:

• Entrámos num café que ficava perto da praça.
  = We went into a café that was near the square.

The café’s location is background information, so the imperfect is natural.

No. Here mesmo does not mean same.

In this sentence, mesmo is an intensifier. It adds emphasis and means something like:

• right
• just
• exactly

So:

• mesmo antes da curva = just before the bend / right before the bend

Compare:

• mesmo ao lado = right next to
• mesmo aqui = right here
• mesmo no fim = right at the end

So mesmo makes the position more precise.

Da is the contraction of:

• de + a = da

Since curva is feminine singular and uses the definite article a, Portuguese contracts the preposition and article:

• antes de a curva → antes da curva

This kind of contraction is extremely common:

• do = de + o
• da = de + a
• dos = de + os
• das = de + as

So:

• antes da curva = before the bend

Not directly in the same structure.

You cannot say:

• uma casa que garagem... ❌

If you want to avoid cuja, you need to rewrite the sentence, for example:

• Passámos por uma casa e a garagem dela ficava mesmo antes da curva.
• Passámos por uma casa, cuja garagem ficava mesmo antes da curva.
• Passámos por uma casa; a sua garagem ficava mesmo antes da curva.

However, cuja is the most elegant and compact option when you want to say whose.

It is worth learning because it is common in writing and formal or careful speech, even if many speakers sometimes prefer to rephrase in everyday conversation.

Yes. Garagem is a feminine noun:

• a garagem
• uma garagem

That matters because cujo/cuja must agree with garagem:

• cuja garagem = whose garage

And casa is also feminine:

• uma casa

So in this sentence, both nouns are feminine, but cuja is feminine specifically because of garagem, not because of casa.

Here curva most naturally means a bend or turn in the road/path.

So:

• antes da curva = before the bend / before the turn

Even though curva is related to the English word curve, in this context English usually sounds more natural with bend or turn.

Yes, it is natural and correct in European Portuguese.

A few points that feel especially normal in European Portuguese are:

• passámos por for we passed by
• cuja garagem for whose garage
• ficava to describe location
• mesmo antes da curva for just before the bend

The whole sentence sounds like good standard Portuguese, especially in written language or careful speech.

A useful way to understand it is to split it into two smaller ideas:

1. Passámos por uma casa.
   = We passed by a house.

2. A garagem dessa casa ficava mesmo antes da curva.
   = That house’s garage was just before the bend.

Then Portuguese combines them into one sentence using cuja:

• Passámos por uma casa cuja garagem ficava mesmo antes da curva.

This is often a helpful strategy when you see relative clauses in Portuguese: break the sentence into simpler statements first.