Breakdown of Pulverizamos os quartos às sextas-feiras para matar aranhas.
o quarto
the bedroom / the room
a sexta-feira
the Friday
a
to / at (direction)
para
to / for
matar
to kill
pulverizar
to spray
a aranha
the spider
Questions & Answers about Pulverizamos os quartos às sextas-feiras para matar aranhas.
Does Pulverizamos mean 'we spray' or 'we sprayed'?
In this sentence, it means 'we spray'. The form pulverizamos is exactly the same for both the present tense and the simple past (Pretérito Perfeito) for regular -ar verbs in European Portuguese. However, the phrase às sextas-feiras (on Fridays) tells us this is a repeating habit, so it must be the present tense.
Why is it às sextas-feiras instead of just em sextas-feiras?
To say 'on a certain day of the week' for a recurring event, Portuguese uses the preposition a combined with the definite article. Since sextas-feiras is feminine and plural, the preposition a merges with the article as to become às. If it were just one Friday, it would be à sexta-feira.
Why isn't sextas-feiras capitalized?
Unlike in English, days of the week and months of the year are not capitalized in Portuguese unless they appear at the very beginning of a sentence.
Could I use por matar instead of para matar?
No. When you want to express the purpose or goal of an action (meaning 'in order to'), you must use para. The preposition por is used for reasons or causes (meaning 'because of'), durations, or movement through a space. Here, the goal of spraying is to kill the spiders, so para is the correct choice.
Learn Pulverizamos os quartos às sextas-feiras para matar aranhas and more in Portuguese
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free