When to use it
Use it to check whether some people arrived the night before, for example guests or relatives coming from a trip.
The sentence in English — “Did they arrive last night?”
"Did they arrive last night?" asks about the past with the auxiliary "did". The main verb "arrive" stays in its base form. "Last night" is a fixed expression for the night before today.
- Did
- auxiliary verbdo · tense: past · auxiliary that makes a question in the past
- they
- pronounpersonal pronoun, third person plural
- arrive
- verbarrive · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · after "did" the verb stays in its base form
- last
- adjectiveadjective; "last night" means the night before today
- night
- nounnoun
The sentence in Portuguese — “Eles chegaram ontem à noite?”
"Eles chegaram ontem à noite?" uses "chegaram", the simple past of "chegar" for "eles". "Ontem" means yesterday and "à noite" means at night; the accent in "à" shows the crase, the joining of the preposition "a" with the article "a".
- Eles
- pronounpersonal pronoun: "they" (masculine or mixed group)
- chegaram
- verbchegar · tense: simple past (pretérito perfeito) · person: third · number: plural · "arrived"
- ontem
- adverbadverb of time: "yesterday"
- à
- contractioncontraction of "a" + "a" (crase); "à noite" means "at night"
- noite
- nounfeminine noun: "night"
English × Portuguese — What changes from one language to the other
English says "last night"; Portuguese says "ontem à noite", literally "yesterday at night". Portuguese marks the past in the verb and keeps the word order of a statement, while English needs "did" and puts it first.
Example conversation
— Eles chegaram ontem à noite?
— Did they arrive last night?
— Chegaram, por volta das onze.
— Yes, around eleven.