Breakdown of Há dias que a águia voava perto da lagoa.
o dia
the day
perto de
near
que
that (conjunction)
há
ago / for (a period up to now)
voar
to fly
a águia
the eagle
a lagoa
the lagoon
Questions & Answers about Há dias que a águia voava perto da lagoa.
Why is Há used here instead of a word for "for"?
In Portuguese, the verb haver (here as Há) is commonly used to express elapsed time. While English says "for days", Portuguese literally says "there are days that" (Há dias que). Because this is about an ongoing duration of time rather than a repeating event on specific days of the week, we use Há instead of a frequency phrase with aos or às.
Why does the sentence use the imperfect tense voava instead of a past perfect tense?
The structure Há [time] que followed by the imperfect tense (like voava) is the standard way to say an action had been happening for a certain amount of time. If the eagle were still flying there today, you would use the present tense instead: Há dias que voa (It has been flying for days).
Could I say Faz dias que instead of Há dias que?
Why is it da lagoa and not just de lagoa?
The phrase for "near" or "close to" is perto de. Because we are talking about a specific lagoon (the lagoon), we need the feminine definite article a. The preposition de merges with a to form the contraction da.
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