Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Ele é culpado, mas já escondeu a prova. - He is guilty, but he already hid the proof.

Ele é culpado, mas já escondeu a prova.

He is guilty, but he already hid the proof.

Breakdown of Ele é culpado, mas já escondeu a prova.

Questions & Answers about Ele é culpado, mas já escondeu a prova.

Why do we use é (from ser) instead of está (from estar) for being guilty?

In Portuguese, guilt is treated as a definitive legal or moral status rather than a temporary emotional state or feeling. Because it is viewed as a defining characteristic or fact about the person in this context, we use ser (ele é) rather than estar.

I know a prova translates to "the proof" here. Does it have other common meanings?

Yes! While in a legal or investigative context it means "proof" or "evidence", in everyday life a prova is frequently used to mean a "test" or "exam" at school or university.

We are currently learning the Future Subjunctive. Since this sentence states a past fact, it uses the regular past tense (escondeu). How would this verb look if the sentence was a future possibility, like "If he hides the proof"?

To say "If he hides the proof", you would use the Future Subjunctive (Futuro do Conjuntivo). Because esconder is a regular verb, its Future Subjunctive form is identical to its personal infinitive: se ele esconder a prova.

Why is já placed before the verb escondeu instead of at the end of the sentence?

In Portuguese, short adverbs of time like já (already) are almost always placed immediately before the verb they modify. Putting it at the end of the sentence sounds unnatural to a native speaker.