Antes de submeteres o trabalho, folheia o manual com calma.

Because Portuguese can use the personal infinitive, an infinitive that changes depending on the subject.

Here, antes de submeteres o trabalho means before you submit the assignment/work. The ending -es shows the subject is tu.

Compare:

• Antes de submeter o trabalho... = before submitting the work / before you submit the work
  
  • more neutral, less explicit about the subject
• Antes de submeteres o trabalho... = before you submit the work
  
  • explicitly linked to tu

In European Portuguese, this is very natural.

Not here. In this sentence, submeteres is best understood as a personal infinitive form.

That can be confusing, because submeteres also looks like another verb form you may meet elsewhere. But after antes de, Portuguese normally uses an infinitive structure, so here it is functioning as the personal infinitive.

A useful comparison:

• Antes de submeteres o trabalho... = before submitting / before you submit
• Antes que submetas o trabalho... = before you submit
  
  • this uses subjunctive after antes que

So the sentence you have is the antes de + infinitive pattern.

Because Portuguese often drops subject pronouns when the verb ending already makes the subject clear.

In this sentence:

• submeteres points to tu
• folheia is a command addressed to tu

So Portuguese does not need to say tu explicitly. You could add it for emphasis, but normally it is omitted.

Folheia is the affirmative imperative for tu of the verb folhear.

So it means:

• leaf through
• flip through
• have a look through

With tu, many affirmative commands in Portuguese have their own form. Here:

• infinitive: folhear
• present indicative: tu folheias
• imperative: folheia

A useful extra point: in the negative command, Portuguese changes form:

• Folheia o manual. = leaf through the manual.
• Não folheies o manual. = don’t leaf through the manual.

Not exactly.

Folhear means to leaf through, to flip through the pages, or to browse through something. It suggests looking through a book or manual page by page, often quickly or selectively.

Ler means to read.

So:

• Ler o manual = read the manual
• Folhear o manual = flip through / leaf through the manual

In this sentence, folheia suggests something like look through the manual carefully before submitting rather than necessarily read every word from beginning to end.

Com calma literally means with calm, but in natural English it usually means:

• calmly
• carefully
• without rushing
• take your time

So in this sentence it softens the instruction and suggests a careful, unhurried action.

It is a very common phrase in Portuguese.

Examples:

• Faz isso com calma. = Do that carefully / Take your time with that.
• Lê com calma. = Read carefully / Read it without rushing.

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English.

Here, o trabalho and o manual refer to specific things that speaker and listener can identify:

• the assignment/work
• the manual

English might sometimes omit an article in similar contexts, but Portuguese usually keeps it when talking about a specific known item.

So this sounds normal and natural:

• submeter o trabalho
• folhear o manual

Yes, and the meaning would be similar, but the nuance changes a little.

• submeter = to submit
  
  • often used for formal, official, or online submission
• entregar = to hand in / deliver / give in
  
  • more general and very common in school contexts too

So:

• Antes de submeteres o trabalho... sounds slightly more formal or administrative
• Antes de entregares o trabalho... sounds more like before handing in the assignment

If you are uploading something to a platform, submeter is especially natural.

Because Antes de submeteres o trabalho is an introductory clause placed before the main instruction.

The comma helps separate:

• the time clause: Antes de submeteres o trabalho
• the main command: folheia o manual com calma

This is very normal punctuation.

If you put the command first, the comma often disappears:

• Folheia o manual com calma antes de submeteres o trabalho.

Yes, it fits European Portuguese very well.

Two strong clues are:

• the use of tu
• the tu command folheia

In Portugal, speaking directly to one person with tu like this is very common in many contexts.

The vocabulary itself is also perfectly natural in Portugal:

• submeter
• trabalho
• manual
• com calma

In Brazilian Portuguese, you might more often see a command aimed at você, such as folheie, depending on the situation and region.

Yes. That version is also correct.

The difference is mainly that:

• submeter is a plain infinitive
• submeteres makes the subject you more explicit

So:

• Antes de submeter o trabalho... = before submitting the work / before you submit the work
• Antes de submeteres o trabalho... = before you submit the work

In everyday Portuguese, both are possible, but submeteres can sound a bit more directly addressed to the person being told what to do.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Trabalho is a broad word. It can mean:

• work
• piece of work
• assignment
• project
• paper

In a school or university context, submeter o trabalho often means submit the assignment / paper / project.

So you should not always translate trabalho the same way. The context decides.

Very often, yes.

A very common pattern is:

• antes de + infinitive

Examples:

• Antes de sair... = before leaving...
• Antes de responderes... = before you answer...
• Antes de começar... = before starting...

But Portuguese also has:

• antes que + subjunctive

Example:

• Antes que saias... = before you leave
• Antes que respondas... = before you answer

So both patterns exist, but in your sentence the structure is clearly antes de + infinitive, specifically the personal infinitive: submeteres.