Breakdown of Deves colocar o parafuso aqui e depois podes aparafusar.
e
and
aqui
here
poder
can / may (verb)
depois
later
dever
should / ought to
o parafuso
the screw
colocar
to place, to position
aparafusar
to screw in
Questions & Answers about Deves colocar o parafuso aqui e depois podes aparafusar.
In the English translation we see "screw it in", but the Portuguese sentence just ends with aparafusar. Where is the "it"?
This is the "Inanimate Null Object" at work. In European Portuguese, when an inanimate direct object (like o parafuso) has just been mentioned, it is very common to simply drop it in the following clause rather than using a pronoun. Saying ...e depois podes aparafusar is perfectly complete and sounds much more natural in everyday speech than forcing a pronoun.
Would it be grammatically wrong to say aparafusá-lo to explicitly mean "screw it in"?
It wouldn't be grammatically wrong! You can absolutely say e depois podes aparafusá-lo. However, at the B2 level, it's important to recognize that spoken European Portuguese strongly prefers dropping the pronoun for inanimate things. Using aparafusá-lo here might sound a bit formal or literary for a simple, practical instruction.
I notice parafuso (screw) and aparafusar (to screw in) are very similar. Is adding "a-" and "-ar" a common way to make verbs from nouns?
Could I use pôr instead of colocar in this sentence?
Yes, pôr and colocar are largely interchangeable when meaning "to put" or "to place". Colocar often sounds slightly more precise, deliberate, or instructional (which fits perfectly here when talking about positioning a screw), while pôr is the most common everyday default. Both work beautifully.
Deves is translated here as "you must", but doesn't it usually mean "you should"?
The verb dever covers a spectrum from strong obligation ("must") to strong advice ("should"). In a practical instruction like this, "must" is the logical translation because placing the screw is a required physical step before screwing it in. If you wanted to express a softer "should" as a mere suggestion, you would typically use the conditional tense: deverias colocar.
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