Breakdown of Há anos que eles procuravam os registos dos antepassados.
de
of / from / by (means of transport) / wearing (attire)
eles
they (m)
o ano
the year
procurar
to look for / to seek to, to try to
o
him/it (m)
que
that (conjunction)
há
ago / for (a period up to now)
o registo
the record (registry, document)
o antepassado
the ancestor
Questions & Answers about Há anos que eles procuravam os registos dos antepassados.
Why is procuravam in the imperfect tense here instead of the present tense?
The structure Há + time + que uses the present tense when an action started in the past and is still happening (which would mean "They have been looking"). By using the imperfect (procuravam), it changes the meaning to "They had been looking" up until some other point in the past.
Could I write this sentence without using que?
Yes, but you would have to change the word order. You can drop the que by moving the time expression to the end: Eles procuravam os registos dos antepassados há anos. Putting Há anos que at the beginning is a special structure used to emphasize how long the action was happening.
Why isn't there a word for "for" after the verb procuravam?
Could we say Faz anos que instead of Há anos que?
While you might hear Faz anos que in Brazilian Portuguese to express elapsed time, European Portuguese almost exclusively uses the verb haver (Há) for these time duration structures.
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