Word
Inspecionamos a casa aos sábados para evitar pragas.
Meaning
We inspect the house on Saturdays to avoid pests.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Inspecionamos a casa aos sábados para evitar pragas.
a casa
the house
o sábado
the Saturday
a
to / at (direction)
para
to / for
Questions & Answers about Inspecionamos a casa aos sábados para evitar pragas.
How do we know Inspecionamos is in the present tense and not the past tense here?
In European Portuguese, regular -ar verbs in the present tense for the "we" form do not take an accent (inspecionamos). If this were the past tense ("we inspected"), it would require an acute accent on the letter "a": inspecionámos.
Why does the sentence use aos sábados to mean "on Saturdays"?
To express a recurring action that happens on a specific day of the week, Portuguese uses the preposition a combined with the plural definite article. Since sábado is masculine, a plus os becomes aos. It literally translates to "to the Saturdays" but is the standard way to say "on Saturdays".
Why is it para evitar instead of por evitar?
A common B1 struggle is choosing between para and por. You use para plus an infinitive verb like evitar to express a goal or purpose, meaning "in order to". Por is generally used to indicate a cause or reason ("because of"), which does not fit the meaning here.
Does the verb evitar require a preposition before the noun pragas?