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Vocês espremem o soro antes de as bactérias fermentarem a coalhada? — Esprememos.

Vocês espremem o soro antes de as bactérias fermentarem a coalhada? — Esprememos.
Do you squeeze the whey before the bacteria ferment the curd? — We squeeze.
From Lesson 441:Temporal sequencing (antes de fazermos)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Breakdown of Vocês espremem o soro antes de as bactérias fermentarem a coalhada? — Esprememos.

vocês
you (pl)
antes de
before
fermentar
to ferment
a coalhada
the curd
espremer
to squeeze
o soro
the whey
a bactéria
the bacterium

Questions & Answers about Vocês espremem o soro antes de as bactérias fermentarem a coalhada? — Esprememos.

Why is fermentarem in the personal infinitive instead of the subjunctive?
Prepositions like antes de and depois de are followed by an infinitive, not the subjunctive. Because the subject of the second action (as bactérias) is different from the subject of the main clause (vocês), we use the personal infinitive (fermentarem) to make it clear who is doing the fermenting.
Wait, why is it antes de as? Shouldn't de and as contract into das?
This is a very important rule! In Portuguese, you must never contract a preposition (like de) with an article or pronoun (like as) if that word is part of the subject of the following verb. Since as bactérias is the subject of fermentarem, de and as must remain separate.
If fermentarem is an infinitive, why does it have an ending?
That is the special feature of the Portuguese personal infinitive! Unlike the regular (impersonal) infinitive, the personal infinitive changes its ending to match the subject. Here, the regular infinitive fermentar takes the third-person plural ending -em to agree with as bactérias.
Why is the reply Esprememos instead of just saying Sim?
While you can say Sim, the most natural way to answer a yes/no question in Portuguese is to echo the main verb in the correct form. The question asks Vocês espremem (Do you squeeze), so the natural reply is Esprememos (We squeeze).

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