Word
A vida antigamente era mais simples do que agora.
Meaning
Life in the past was simpler than now.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about A vida antigamente era mais simples do que agora.
Why do we use era instead of foi for "was"?
Era is the Pretérito Imperfeito (Imperfect past tense) of the highly irregular verb ser (to be). We use the Imperfeito here because we are describing an ongoing state or how things used to be over a period of time. If we used foi (Pretérito Perfeito), it would imply a single, completed action in the past.
Why does the sentence say A vida when the English translation just says "Life"?
In Portuguese, when you talk about general concepts or abstract ideas like "life", "love", or "nature", you must include the definite article. Therefore, "life" in a general sense becomes A vida.
Is the do in do que required to say "than"?
When making comparisons like "simpler than", Portuguese uses either do que or just que. Both are grammatically correct and mean exactly the same thing, but do que is much more common in everyday spoken Portuguese.
Does antigamente just mean "in the past"?
Yes, it is the standard adverb to say "in the past", "formerly", or "back in the old days". Because it describes how things used to be over a continuous period, seeing antigamente in a sentence is a massive clue that you will need to use the Pretérito Imperfeito tense.