Breakdown of O segredo de que falou o meu avô surpreendeu todos.
de
of / from / by (means of transport) / wearing (attire)
falar
to speak
meu
my (m/f/pl: meu, minha, meus, minhas)
o segredo
the secret
o
him/it (m)
todo
all / whole
o avô
the grandfather
que
who / which / that (relative)
surpreender
to surprise
Questions & Answers about O segredo de que falou o meu avô surpreendeu todos.
Why does the verb falou come before the subject o meu avô?
In Portuguese relative clauses (like this one starting with de que), it is very common and natural to invert the subject and the verb. This happens especially when the subject is a full noun phrase rather than a pronoun. Here, de que falou o meu avô flows better and sounds more elegant than de que o meu avô falou, though both are grammatically correct.
Why is it de que instead of just que?
In English, we often strand the preposition at the end of the sentence: 'The secret that my grandfather talked about.' In Portuguese, prepositions can never be left at the end of a clause. Because the verb is falar de (to talk about), the preposition de must be placed right before the relative pronoun que, literally acting as 'about which'.
Since o meu avô comes after the verb, how do we quickly parse that it is the subject and not the object?
Context is your biggest clue. The inversion puts the subject after the verb, which can look like an object to English eyes. However, logically, a grandfather can talk, but a secret cannot 'talk a grandfather'. The relative phrase de que tells us the secret is the topic being discussed, leaving o meu avô as the only logical subject doing the talking.
Why is the direct object just todos and not a todos?
The verb surpreender (to surprise) takes a direct object, which normally does not take a preposition. You will sometimes see an optional 'personal a' used before todos (surpreendeu a todos) for extra emphasis when the object refers to people, but omitting it, as done here in surpreendeu todos, is perfectly correct and very common in Portugal.
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