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Para salvar a relação, vamos perdoar o que aconteceu.

Para salvar a relação, vamos perdoar o que aconteceu.
To save the relationship, we are going to forgive what happened.
From Lesson 184:The thing that (o que, aquilo que)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Para salvar a relação, vamos perdoar o que aconteceu.

Why do we use o que instead of just que to mean "what"?
In Portuguese, que by itself usually connects to a noun right before it, meaning "that" or "which". When you want to say "what" meaning "the thing that" without a noun before it, you need the free relative pronoun o que. Here, o que aconteceu means "the thing that happened".
Could I say aquilo que aconteceu instead of o que aconteceu?
Yes! aquilo que means exactly the same thing as o que in this context ("that which" or "the thing that"). Using aquilo que just adds a tiny bit more emphasis to the sentence, like saying "that specific thing that happened".
Why do we use Para at the beginning of the sentence instead of Por?
When you want to say "in order to" or express a goal, you always use para followed by the infinitive form of the verb. Here, Para salvar means "In order to save". The preposition por is used for things like cause, duration, or exchange, but not for purpose.
Why is aconteceu in the Pretérito Perfeito (simple past) tense rather than the Imperfeito?
We use the Pretérito Perfeito here because "what happened" refers to a specific, completed event. If you were talking about something that used to happen repeatedly or an ongoing background situation in the past, you would use the Imperfeito tense (acontecia).
Is vamos perdoar more common than the actual future tense perdoaremos?
Yes, for everyday spoken and written Portuguese. Using the verb ir (here, vamos) plus an infinitive (perdoar) is the most natural way to talk about the future. Using the single-word future tense (perdoaremos) is grammatically correct but sounds very formal.

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