Breakdown of Nós vimos que o polo geográfico fica no oceano.
nós
we
em
in / on / at
ver
to see
ficar
to be located (of places)
que
that (conjunction)
o oceano
the ocean
o polo
the pole
geográfico
geographical
Questions & Answers about Nós vimos que o polo geográfico fica no oceano.
Since vimos (we saw) is in the past tense, why is fica (is located) in the present tense instead of the imperfect?
Normally in reported speech, a past tense reporting verb like vimos forces the following verb to backshift into the past, such as the imperfect ficava. However, because the location of the pole is a universal truth and a persisting present reality, we keep fica in the present tense.
Why use fica here instead of está or é to say 'is located'?
Doesn't vimos also mean 'we come' from the verb vir? How do we know it means 'we saw' here?
Exactly! Vimos is a homograph: it is both the present tense of vir (we come) and the simple past of ver (we saw). You have to rely on context. Here, seeing a fact makes perfect sense, whereas coming a fact does not.
I have seen polo written with an accent mark (pólo) in older texts. Why is it missing here?
Under the newer Portuguese Orthographic Agreement, the acute accent was removed from words like polo (pole). It is now always written polo without the accent, though the first O is still pronounced with an open sound.
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