Breakdown of A sobrevivência é difícil e o concorrente chegou a chorar.
ser
to be
e
and
difícil
difficult
chorar
to cry
o concorrente
the contestant
a sobrevivência
the survival
chegar a
to even / to go so far as to
Questions & Answers about A sobrevivência é difícil e o concorrente chegou a chorar.
Why does the translation say "actually cried" instead of just using the past tense for "cried"?
The structure chegar a followed by an infinitive verb (like chorar) is used to express that an action went as far as happening, highlighting an extreme or surprising outcome. If we just used the normal past tense chorou, it would simply state the fact. Using chegou a chorar emphasizes that things got so intense he actually went as far as crying.
Doesn't the verb chegar usually mean "to arrive"?
Yes, on its own, chegar means "to arrive". However, when combined with the preposition a and an infinitive verb, it acts as a set phrase (a verbal periphrasis) showing the culmination or peak of an event. You can usually translate this combination as "went as far as" or "actually did".
Is concorrente only used for male competitors?
The noun concorrente is gender-neutral and doesn't change its spelling regardless of who it refers to. We only know this specific competitor is male because of the masculine definite article o right before it. If it were a woman, the sentence would say a concorrente.
Why do we use é (from ser) instead of está (from estar) with difícil here?
Using é treats the difficulty of survival as a general rule, a permanent characteristic, or a core fact of the situation (like a survival reality show). If the speaker wanted to say survival is just being unusually difficult right now as a temporary state, they would have used está.
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