Breakdown of A gráfica faliu ontem, por isso nós próprios desenhamos o cartaz.
isso
that
nós
we
por
through / by / for / because of
desenhar
to draw
Questions & Answers about A gráfica faliu ontem, por isso nós próprios desenhamos o cartaz.
Since falir is a defective verb, how are we able to conjugate it as faliu here?
Falir (to go bankrupt) is only defective in the present tense, where it lacks the "I", "you", "he/she/it", and "they" forms. In the simple past tense (Pretérito Perfeito), it is fully conjugated just like a regular verb. Because this happened ontem (yesterday), we can use the normal 3rd person singular past form: faliu.
If falir lacks a 3rd person singular form in the present tense, how would I say "The printing shop goes bankrupt"?
Because the conjugation does not exist, you have to use a workaround (a morphological gap filler). A native speaker would use a related phrase like vai à falência (literally "goes to bankruptcy") or use the continuous form está a falir ("is going bankrupt"), because the continuous structure relies on the infinitive verb, which always exists.
Is gráfica a false friend here? It looks like the English word "graphic".
Yes! As a feminine noun, uma gráfica specifically means a printing shop or printing company. If you want to talk about a "graphic" in the sense of a visual chart or computer graphics, you would use the masculine noun um gráfico.
Why use nós próprios instead of just saying nós?