Breakdown of O presidente acaba de declarar guerra.
a guerra
the war
acabar de
to have just (done something)
o presidente
the president
declarar
to declare
Questions & Answers about O presidente acaba de declarar guerra.
Why does the present tense verb acaba translate to "has just"?
The expression acabar de followed by an infinitive (the unconjugated verb, like declarar) is a special structure that means "to have just done" something. Even though acaba is in the present tense, the combination tells us the action was completed a moment ago.
Doesn't the verb acabar normally mean "to finish"?
Yes, on its own, acabar means "to finish" or "to end". You can think of acaba de declarar literally as "finishes from declaring". In Portuguese, this is the standard way to express that an action just finished happening.
Is the preposition de always required in this expression?
Yes, the de is the glue that makes this work. To mean "have just done something", you must always use the conjugated form of acabar, plus the preposition de, plus the infinitive verb. If you forget de, the sentence loses this meaning.
Why is there no article before guerra? Don't we usually need words like a or uma?
Just like the English phrase "to declare war", declarar guerra is a set expression in Portuguese. When talking about the general concept of starting a war, the article is dropped.