Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Eu disse para eles procurarem o posto, apesar de nós estarmos cansados. - I said for them to look for the checkpoint, despite us being tired.

Eu disse para eles procurarem o posto, apesar de nós estarmos cansados.

I said for them to look for the checkpoint, despite us being tired.

Breakdown of Eu disse para eles procurarem o posto, apesar de nós estarmos cansados.

to be (temporary / location)

Questions & Answers about Eu disse para eles procurarem o posto, apesar de nós estarmos cansados.

Why do we use para eles procurarem with the Personal Infinitive instead of using the subjunctive?

When reporting a command, you have two great options. You can use que plus the Subjunctive (like disse que procurassem), or you can use para plus the Personal Infinitive (disse para procurarem). This second option is incredibly common in spoken Portuguese because it bypasses the more complex subjunctive conjugations while delivering the exact same meaning.

Why is the verb estarmos in the Personal Infinitive after apesar de?

The phrase apesar de ends in a preposition (de). In Portuguese, when a verb directly follows a preposition and has a specific subject (here, nós), you must use the Personal Infinitive. If you wanted to use a fully conjugated verb instead, you would need to change the phrase to the conjunction apesar de que and use the Subjunctive.

Since Portuguese often drops subject pronouns, could we remove eles and nós here?

You could drop them if the context was already perfectly clear, but it is much safer to keep them here. Because the sentence switches subjects halfway through from eu to eles to nós, leaving the pronouns in makes it instantly obvious who is performing each action in the Personal Infinitive clauses.

What kind of checkpoint does posto refer to here?