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Está a chover, portanto ficamos em casa.

Está a chover, portanto ficamos em casa.
It is raining, therefore we stay home.
From Lesson 183:Os conectores do discurso (portanto, afinal)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Está a chover, portanto ficamos em casa.

Why is the sentence using está a chover instead of just chove?
está a chover means "it is raining" right now. In Portugal, we describe an ongoing action by using the verb estar (to be) + a + the infinitive of the main verb (chover). You might see words ending in "-ndo" (like chovendo) in Brazilian Portuguese, but in Portugal, the estar a pattern is the standard way to say something is currently happening.
Where is the word for "it" in the first half, and "we" in the second half?
Portuguese usually drops subject pronouns. For weather conditions, you never use a word for "it" — you just use the verb on its own (está). For "we stay", the ending of ficamos already tells us the subject is "we" (nós), so adding the pronoun isn't necessary.
Doesn't the verb ficar mean "to be located"? Why does it mean "stay" here?
ficar is a very flexible verb! While you probably learned it early on to talk about where things are located (like "Onde fica o museu?"), its most literal and common meaning is "to stay" or "to remain". Here, ficamos em casa simply translates to "we stay at home".
Why does the sentence use em casa instead of na casa?
When talking about your own home, Portuguese uses the preposition em (in/at) without merging it with the feminine "the" (a). Just like in English we say "at home" rather than "at the home", in Portuguese you say em casa rather than na casa.

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