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Eles ligaram para o escritório anteontem.

Eles ligaram para o escritório anteontem.
They called the office the day before yesterday.
From Lesson 63:Past tense of regular -ar verbs·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Eles ligaram para o escritório anteontem.

How do I form the past tense for "eles" with an -ar verb like ligar?
Ligaram is the eles (they) form of the regular verb ligar (to call/to connect) in the simple past tense. To form it, you drop the -ar from the infinitive and add the ending -aram.
Why is there a para before o escritório? In English, we just say "called the office".
In Portuguese, when you use ligar to mean making a phone call, it requires the preposition para (to) to show who or where you are calling. You can think of it literally as "they placed a call to the office".
How do you pronounce the -aram ending in ligaram?
The -am at the end of Portuguese verbs creates a nasal sound, somewhat similar to an English "uhwng". Also, the spoken stress falls on the second-to-last syllable (-ga-), not the final syllable. So it sounds like "li-GA-ruhwng".
Is anteontem really just one word?
Yes! It is a very common, single word that means "the day before yesterday". It is formed by combining the prefix ante- (before) and the word ontem (yesterday).

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