Breakdown of Mal chegámos ao circuito, a corrida começou.
a
to / at (direction)
começar
to begin
chegar
to arrive
mal
as soon as
Questions & Answers about Mal chegámos ao circuito, a corrida começou.
Why is chegámos in the indicative mood rather than the subjunctive here?
The word mal translates to "as soon as". When it describes a completed action in the past, like arriving at the circuit, you use the indicative mood. You only use the subjunctive with mal when talking about a future event that hasn't happened yet.
Doesn't mal usually mean "bad" or "badly"?
Yes, mal is often an adverb meaning "badly" (the opposite of bem). However, when used to connect two events in time like in this sentence, it acts as a temporal conjunction meaning "as soon as", "barely", or "hardly".
Why does chegámos have an accent mark on the a?
In European Portuguese, this acute accent shows that the verb is in the past tense and tells you to pronounce it with an open a sound. Without the accent, chegamos is the present tense (we arrive) and has a more closed a sound.
Why do we say ao circuito instead of no circuito?
The verb chegar (to arrive) is followed by the preposition a to indicate the destination you are arriving at. Because circuito is a masculine noun, the preposition a combines with the definite article o to make ao.