Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Apenas a gente está a fazer a triagem da pilha.

Focus adverbs like apenas modify the word or phrase immediately following them. By placing it at the very beginning, it scopes over a gente, meaning nobody else but us is doing this. If you moved it after the verb, like A gente está apenas a fazer a triagem, it would change the focus to mean we are only sorting the pile and not doing anything else to it.

Could I use só instead of apenas here?

Yes, you can use só and apenas interchangeably in this context. Saying Só a gente está a fazer means exactly the same thing. Apenas is often considered slightly more formal, which creates a fun contrast here when paired with the highly informal a gente.

Why is the verb está in the singular if a gente means multiple people?

Even though a gente translates to we, it is grammatically a third-person singular noun phrase (literally the people). Therefore, it always takes the third-person singular verb conjugation. If you wanted to use a plural verb, you would need to swap the pronoun and say Apenas nós estamos.

I thought triagem meant medical triage. Can it be used for sorting regular objects?

Yes! While it shares the same root as the English medical term, fazer a triagem is used much more broadly in everyday Portuguese. It is a standard way to talk about sorting, screening, or separating things into categories, such as recycling, mail, or a pile of documents.