Question 1

Why do procurámos and encontrámos have an accent mark on the 'a'?

Accepted Answer

In European Portuguese, regular '-ar' verbs add an acute accent (á) to the "we" (nós) form in the simple past tense. This is very important because it distinguishes the past tense from the present tense, which is spelled without the accent. So, procuramos means "we look", but procurámos means "we looked".

Question 2

The translation says "looked for", but I don't see a word for "for" in the sentence. Why?

Accepted Answer

The verb procurar already means "to look for" or "to search for". You do not need to add an extra preposition for "for". You just connect the verb directly to the thing you are looking for: procurámos o gato.

Question 3

Doesn't não encontrámos nada literally translate to "we didn't find nothing"?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it does! Portuguese uses what we call a double negative. When a negative word like nada (nothing) comes after the verb, you still need to put não (not) before the verb. While this sounds incorrect in English, it is the standard and correct way to speak in Portuguese.

Question 4

Can I drop the word Nós at the beginning of the sentence?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. In Portuguese, the verb endings tell you exactly who is doing the action. The -ámos ending belongs only to nós (we), so just saying Procurámos o gato... is completely natural and very common.

Nós procurámos o gato, mas não encontrámos nada.

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