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
ontem
yesterday
falir
to go bankrupt
próprio
-self (emphatic)
a gráfica
the printing shop
o cartaz
the poster
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?
Nós próprios means "we ourselves". Adding próprios is an emphatic device used to stress that the subject is doing the action directly, especially to contrast it with someone else who was supposed to do it (in this case, the printing shop). Remember that it must agree in gender, so an all-female group would say nós próprias.
How do we know desenhamos is in the present tense ("we draw") rather than the past tense ("we drew")?
In European Portuguese, the spelling gives it away! The 1st person plural present tense is written desenhamos and is pronounced with a closed "a" sound. The simple past tense requires an acute accent to indicate an open "a" sound: desenhámos. Because there is no accent in this sentence, it can only be the present tense.
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