Breakdown of O comboio passa pelo túnel.
o comboio
the train
passar
to pass
pelo
through the (m.sg, pela, pelos, pelas)
o túnel
the tunnel
Questions & Answers about O comboio passa pelo túnel.
Why does the sentence use pelo instead of just por?
Pelo is a mandatory contraction. When the preposition por (through/by/for) comes right before the masculine word for 'the' (o), they merge together to become pelo. Since túnel is a masculine word, we need o, making it por + o = pelo.
I thought por meant 'by' or 'for'. Why does it translate to 'through' here?
The preposition por has a few different meanings depending on the context. When you are talking about movement or following a path, like a train going into a tunnel and coming out the other side, por (and its contractions like pelo) translates to 'through'.
Is passa a regular verb?
Why does túnel have an accent mark?
The accent mark tells you to put the spoken stress on the first syllable. Without it, Portuguese pronunciation rules would normally force the stress onto the last syllable because the word ends in the letter 'l'.