Breakdown of Obrigado por me teres oferecido a lembrança.
ter
to have
por
through / by / for / because of
me
me
obrigado
thank you
oferecer
to offer
a lembrança
the small gift
Questions & Answers about Obrigado por me teres oferecido a lembrança.
Why do we use teres oferecido instead of just a regular past tense?
Because it follows the preposition por. After prepositions, Portuguese requires an infinitive, not a regular conjugated tense. To show that the action happened in the past (before you say "thank you"), we use the Perfect Personal Infinitive. This is formed with the personal infinitive of ter (here, teres for the "tu" form) plus the past participle (oferecido). It literally means "for having offered".
Wait, why is it teres and not tens?
Tens is the present indicative tense ("you have"). As mentioned, prepositions like por force us to use the infinitive. The personal infinitive allows you to show who did the action while keeping the verb in its infinitive-like form. For the verb ter, the "tu" form of the personal infinitive is teres.
Why is the pronoun me placed before teres instead of attached to the end?
Prepositions like por act as "magnet words" that pull the object pronoun before the verb. When you have a compound verb like teres oferecido, the pronoun attaches to the first verb (the auxiliary). While you might sometimes hear people say por teres-me oferecido in Portugal, putting it before the auxiliary verb (por me teres) is very natural and strictly follows the grammar rules.
I thought oferecer meant "to offer". Does it mean "to give" here?
Yes! In Portuguese, oferecer is the standard verb used for giving someone a gift, present, or a treat. Because uma lembrança is a souvenir or a small gift, oferecer here simply means that they gave it to you as a present.
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