ABSTRACT
To talk about actions or events that took place in the past and ended in the past, as in ‘I had dinner and went to bed’, ‘Cabral arrived in Brazil in 1500’, ‘We didn’t find the restaurant’, Portuguese uses the preterite tense:
Jantei e fui para a cama.
I had dinner and went to bed.
Cabral chegou ao Brasil em 1500.
Cabral arrived in Brazil in 1500.
Não encontramos o restaurante.
We didn’t find the restaurant.
