Learn Spanish (Latin America): Por suerte llegamos temprano.

Por suerte llegamos temprano.

Luckily we arrived early.

Breakdown of Por suerte llegamos temprano.

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Questions & Answers about Por suerte llegamos temprano.

Wait, does llegamos mean "we arrived" or "we arrive"?

It can be both! For -ar and -ir verbs, the nosotros (we) form is exactly the same in both the present tense and the preterite (simple past) tense. You have to rely on context to figure out which one it is. In this case, "we arrived" makes the most sense as a standalone statement.

Why do we use por instead of para in por suerte?

Por suerte is a fixed expression that translates to "luckily" or "fortunately" (literally "by luck"). Por is often used to build these kinds of descriptive phrases expressing the reason or manner of something. This is exactly the same way it builds the por si (just in case) phrases you are focusing on in this lesson!

Since it describes how we arrived, could I say tempranamente instead of temprano?

While tempranamente is a real word, native speakers almost never use it in everyday conversation. Temprano acts as both an adjective and an adverb, so it is perfectly fine to use temprano on its own to describe the verb llegamos.