Word
Os vizinhos estão a incomodar-me.
Meaning
The neighbors are bothering me.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Os vizinhos estão a incomodar-me.
estar
to be (temporary / location)
me
me
o vizinho
the neighbor (m)
incomodar
to bother
Questions & Answers about Os vizinhos estão a incomodar-me.
Why is me attached to the end of the verb here (incomodar-me) when we are learning about pronouns moving to the front?
How would the pronoun placement change if we added an adverb like sempre (always)?
Could I attach the pronoun to estão instead, like estão-me a incomodar?
Yes! In European Portuguese, when you use the estar a + infinitive structure, you have two choices when there are no magnet words. You can attach the pronoun to the helping verb (estão-me a incomodar) or to the infinitive (estão a incomodar-me). Both are perfectly correct.
I remember that estar a plus the infinitive means doing something right now. Is that what is happening here?
Exactly! The phrase estão a incomodar uses the verb estar (to be) followed by a and the infinitive incomodar (to bother). This is the standard way to say "are bothering" (the present continuous tense) in European Portuguese.