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O jornalista acaba de chegar, devemos falar com ele?

O jornalista acaba de chegar, devemos falar com ele?
The journalist has just arrived, should we speak with him?
From Lesson 136:Recent actions (acabar de)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about O jornalista acaba de chegar, devemos falar com ele?

How does acaba de chegar mean "has just arrived" if acabar is in the present tense?
In Portuguese, you use the present tense of acabar followed by the preposition de and an infinitive verb (here, chegar) to say that something has just happened. Even though the action is in the recent past, the helping verb acabar itself stays in the present tense.
The word jornalista ends in an "a". Why does it use the masculine article O?
Words ending in -ista (like jornalista, artista, dentista) are gender-neutral in their spelling. The gender of the person you are talking about is shown by the article before it. O jornalista means a male journalist, while a jornalista would mean a female journalist.
Why do we use ele instead of o or lhe for "him"?
After most prepositions, including com (with), Portuguese uses prepositional pronouns. For "him" or "he", that pronoun is ele. Object pronouns like o and lhe are attached directly to the verb, not placed after a preposition like com.
Why is falar not conjugated to match devemos?
When you have two verbs working together to express a single idea, like devemos falar (should we speak), only the first verb (devemos) is conjugated. The second verb always stays in its infinitive (dictionary) form, which is falar here.

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