Breakdown of Precisamos de intervir na escola hoje para prevenir o crime.
em
in / on / at
a escola
the school
hoje
today
para
to / for
precisar de
to need
o crime
the crime
prevenir
to prevent
intervir
to intervene
Questions & Answers about Precisamos de intervir na escola hoje para prevenir o crime.
How could we use this lesson's structure to say "Were it not for today's intervention at the school, we wouldn't prevent crime"?
Why do we say Precisamos de intervir instead of just Precisamos intervir?
In European Portuguese, when the verb precisar (to need) is followed by an infinitive verb, you must use the preposition de to connect them. Note that Brazilian Portuguese often drops the de, which is why you might sometimes see this structure without the preposition online, but for PT-PT, the de is required here.
Intervir looks like it contains the verb vir. Does it conjugate the same way?
Yes! Intervir (to intervene) is derived from vir (to come) and follows its exact irregular conjugation patterns. For instance, the first-person past tense is eu intervim (matching eu vim), and the present third-person singular is ele intervém (matching ele vem, but taking an acute accent to mark the stress on the final syllable).
Why does the Portuguese sentence include the article o in o crime when the English translation does not?
Portuguese uses definite articles before abstract concepts and nouns spoken about in a general, universal sense. Because we are talking about preventing crime broadly rather than one specific event, it requires the article o.
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