Breakdown of Supostamente, o ex-marido quer divorciar-se antes de viajar.
querer
to want
viajar
to travel
antes de
before
supostamente
supposedly
o ex-marido
the ex-husband
divorciar-se
to get divorced
Questions & Answers about Supostamente, o ex-marido quer divorciar-se antes de viajar.
Since this lesson is about phrases like que eu saiba, how could I use one here instead of supostamente?
You could replace supostamente (supposedly) with que eu saiba to mean "As far as I know, the ex-husband wants to get divorced..." If you do this, the rest of the sentence remains exactly the same: Que eu saiba, o ex-marido quer divorciar-se antes de viajar. The subjunctive is only needed inside the fixed phrase itself.
Why do we use the infinitive viajar here instead of conjugating it?
Because the subject of the second action (traveling) is the same as the main action (the ex-husband getting divorced). When the subject does not change, Portuguese prefers using a preposition like antes de followed by the uninflected infinitive. You do not need to conjugate it into the subjunctive or use the personal infinitive here.
Why is the pronoun attached to the end in divorciar-se?
In European Portuguese, pronouns usually attach to the end of the verb unless a specific "magnetic" word pulls them to the front. Here, divorciar is an infinitive following the affirmative verb quer, and there is no negative word or conjunction to pull the se forward, so it naturally attaches to the end with a hyphen.
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