Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Já que está atrasado, o homenageado estará a chegar à sala. - Since he is late, the guest of honor is probably arriving at the room.

Já que está atrasado, o homenageado estará a chegar à sala.

Since he is late, the guest of honor is probably arriving at the room.

Breakdown of Já que está atrasado, o homenageado estará a chegar à sala.

estar

to be (temporary / location)

a sala

the living room

to / at (direction)

at the (fem. sg.) / to the (fem. sg.)

Questions & Answers about Já que está atrasado, o homenageado estará a chegar à sala.

Why is estará used here instead of the present tense está, since the translation says "is probably arriving"?

This is the epistemic use of the future tense. Instead of talking about an event in the actual future, we use the future tense to express a strong guess, assumption, or probability about the present. Saying estará a chegar means he "must be arriving" or "is probably arriving" right now.

Could I just say provavelmente está a chegar instead of using the future tense?

Yes! Using an adverb like provavelmente (probably) or an auxiliary like deve (must) with the present tense means exactly the same thing. However, using the epistemic future (estará) is a very natural, concise way for native speakers to express this assumption without needing extra adverbs.

Is Já que the only way to say "Since" here, or could I use Como or Porque?

You could absolutely use Como at the beginning of the sentence (Como está atrasado...). However, porque (because) is almost never placed at the very beginning of a sentence in Portuguese to establish a premise. Já que specifically means "given that" or "since" and works perfectly at the start.

What exactly does homenageado mean? It looks like a verb.

It is the past participle of the verb homenagear (to honor or pay tribute to), used here as a noun. Literally, it means "the honored one", which translates naturally to "the guest of honor" or "the honoree" in English.