Breakdown of O chefe a quem escreveste vai apoiar o nosso projeto.
quem
who
nosso
our (m/f/pl: nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas)
a
to / at (direction)
ir
to go
o chefe
the boss (m)
escrever
to write
o projeto
the project
apoiar
to support
Questions & Answers about O chefe a quem escreveste vai apoiar o nosso projeto.
Why do we use a quem here instead of just quem?
Quem is used to refer to people (who/whom). Because the verb escrever (to write) requires the preposition a when you write to someone, that preposition must go right before the relative pronoun. So, a quem literally translates to "to whom".
In English, the sentence ends with the preposition "to". Why is it in the middle here?
Unlike English, Portuguese never leaves a preposition dangling at the end of a clause. It must always come directly before the word it connects to. Portuguese builds this exactly like the formal English sentence "The boss to whom you wrote".
How do we know who wrote to the boss just from the word escreveste?
The verb ending -este tells us this is the tu (informal "you") form in the simple past tense. Because the verb ending makes it clear who did the action, the pronoun tu is dropped.
Why is there an o before nosso projeto?
In European Portuguese, you generally must include a definite article (like o or a) before a possessive word (like nosso). Since projeto is a masculine singular word, we use o.
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