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O funcionário começa a limpar a sala porque o tapete está manchado.

O funcionário começa a limpar a sala porque o tapete está manchado.
The employee starts to clean the living room because the rug is stained.
From Lesson 146:Regular past participles as adjectives (-ado, -ido)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about O funcionário começa a limpar a sala porque o tapete está manchado.

Why do we use está instead of é before manchado?
We use está (from estar) because a stain is a temporary condition or the result of an action, not a permanent characteristic of the rug. The word manchado (stained) is the past participle of the verb manchar (to stain), used here as an adjective to describe this resulting state.
Would the word manchado change if the sentence was about a feminine noun, like a almofada (the cushion)?
Yes! When we use a past participle like manchado as an adjective, it must agree with the noun's gender and number. Since o tapete (the rug) is masculine singular, it is manchado. If it were a almofada (feminine), it would become está manchada.
Why is there an a between começa and limpar?
In Portuguese, the verb começar (to start) requires the preposition a when it is followed by another verb in its basic form (the infinitive). To say you start doing something, you always use the pattern começar a + [verb].
Does sala mean any room in a house?
Not usually. While it frequently translates to "room" in English, sala specifically refers to common areas like a living room (sala de estar) or dining room (sala de jantar). A bedroom is a quarto, and the generic word for a room in a building is divisão.

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