O júri vai avaliar o que os concorrentes fizerem.

Breakdown of O júri vai avaliar o que os concorrentes fizerem.

o que
what
ir
to go
fazer
to do
o júri
the jury
avaliar
to evaluate
o concorrente
the contestant

Questions & Answers about O júri vai avaliar o que os concorrentes fizerem.

Why do we use the future subjunctive fizerem here instead of the present tense fazem?
In Portuguese, when a relative pronoun like o que (what/whatever) refers to an action that hasn't happened yet, it triggers the future subjunctive. The jury will evaluate whatever they end up doing in the future, so we must use fizerem.
How is the word fizerem formed? It doesn't look like the infinitive fazer.
Fazer is a highly irregular verb. To find the stem for the future subjunctive, you take the 'they' form of the simple past tense (fizeram) and drop the -am ending. For os concorrentes (they), you then add the plural ending -em to the stem fizer-, giving you fizerem.
Could I say tudo o que instead of just o que to mean 'whatever'?
Yes, you could say tudo o que os concorrentes fizerem (everything that the contestants do). Using just o que translates literally to 'what the contestants do', but in this uncertain future context, it carries the exact same open-ended 'whatever' meaning.
Could we use the future tense for the first part and say O júri avaliará?
You absolutely can, and it means the exact same thing. However, using the verb ir (to go) plus an infinitive, like vai avaliar, is much more common in everyday spoken Portuguese, just like saying 'is going to evaluate' is very common in English.

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