Breakdown of A polícia estava a procurar o ladrão na rua.
estar
to be (temporary / location)
em
in / on / at
a rua
the street
procurar
to look for / to seek to, to try to
a polícia
the police
o ladrão
the thief
Questions & Answers about A polícia estava a procurar o ladrão na rua.
Why does the Portuguese sentence use the singular estava when the English translation says "were"?
How do we form the past continuous ("were looking") in this sentence?
In European Portuguese, the continuous tense is formed by using the verb estar followed by the preposition a and the infinitive of the main verb. For the past continuous, we use the imperfect past tense of estar (which is estava) + a + procurar (to look for).
The English translation says "looking for". Why is there no word for "for" after procurar?
The Portuguese verb procurar already means "to look for" or "to search for" all by itself. You do not need to add an extra preposition after it. You just put the object directly after the verb, as in procurar o ladrão.
Where does the word na come from in na rua?
The word na is a contraction. In Portuguese, the preposition em (meaning in, on, or at) merges with the definite article that comes after it. Here, em + a combine to make na, so na rua means "in the street".
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