Breakdown of Duvidamos que tenhas comido todo esse prato picante!
ter
to have
comer
to eat
esse
that (esse, essa, esses, essas)
o prato
the plate / the dish
todo
all / whole
que
that (conjunction)
duvidar
to doubt
picante
spicy
Questions & Answers about Duvidamos que tenhas comido todo esse prato picante!
Why use tenhas comido instead of the regular past tense comeste?
Because the main verb duvidamos expresses doubt. When you express a present feeling, doubt, or opinion about a completed past action, you must use the Pretérito Perfeito Composto do Conjuntivo (Present Perfect Subjunctive). This is built using the present subjunctive of ter (here, tenhas for tu) plus the past participle of the main verb (comido).
How do we know it translates to "you ate" rather than "he/she ate" without a subject pronoun?
The verb form tells us! Tenhas is specifically the tu (informal singular "you") form of the present subjunctive. If the sentence were about "he", "she", or formal "you" (você), the auxiliary verb would be tenha.
Why use esse instead of aquele for "that" dish?
In Portuguese, esse refers to something physically or contextually close to the person you are talking to. Since the speaker is talking directly to the person who supposedly ate the dish, the dish belongs in the listener's "space." If the dish was far away from both the speaker and the listener, they would use aquele.
Why is it todo esse and not tudo esse?
Todo is an adjective here meaning "all" or "the whole", so it has to match the gender and number of the noun it modifies (the masculine singular prato). Tudo is a pronoun meaning "everything" on its own, and it never attaches directly to nouns or demonstratives like this.
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