Breakdown of O jornal disse que o assassino tinha fugido de barco.
dizer
to say
o jornal
the newspaper
o barco
the boat
o assassino
the murderer
Questions & Answers about O jornal disse que o assassino tinha fugido de barco.
Why does this sentence use tinha fugido instead of just fugiu?
Tinha fugido is the compound past perfect tense. We use it here because the murderer fled before the newspaper reported it. Just like in English ("had fled"), it shows one past action was completely finished before another past action (disse) happened. You form it by combining the imperfect tense of ter (tinha) with the past participle (fugido).
To say "by boat", why do we use de in de barco instead of the preposition por?
In Portuguese, you almost always use the preposition de to indicate a means of transportation. Even though the English translation is "by", using por would sound unnatural here. You will see this exact same pattern in phrases like de carro (by car), de comboio (by train), and de avião (by plane).
Because the sentence has que, do we need to worry about using the subjunctive mood here?
Not in this case! The verb dizer (to say) is simply reporting a fact or sharing information here, so the verb that follows stays in the normal indicative mood. You would usually only use the subjunctive after dizer que if it were being used to give an order or command (for example, "I told him to flee").
Is assassino a false friend? Does it mean "assassin" or "murderer"?