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Não esteve nenhum ladrão no meu escritório.

Não esteve nenhum ladrão no meu escritório.
No thief was in my office.
From Lesson 126:Negative indefinite words (nenhum)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Não esteve nenhum ladrão no meu escritório.

Why does the sentence use both não and nenhum?
In Portuguese, double negatives are often required! When a negative word like nenhum (no/none) comes after the verb, you must put não before the verb. Literally, this sentence is structured as: Not was no thief in my office.
Could I start the sentence with nenhum ladrão to match the English word order?
Yes! You can say Nenhum ladrão esteve no meu escritório. When a negative word like nenhum comes before the verb, you must drop the não. Both ways are perfectly natural and mean the exact same thing.
Why is the English word was translated to esteve instead of foi?
We use the verb estar because we are talking about a physical location. Being in an office is a temporary state or a location in space, so we use the past tense of estar (which is esteve) rather than the permanent verb ser.
Why is it no meu escritório instead of just em meu escritório?
In European Portuguese, it is standard to put a definite article (o or a) before a possessive word like meu. So, my office is o meu escritório. When you combine the preposition em (in) with the article o, it merges into the word no.

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