Funções da tiroide explicadas em português europeu
B1 Portuguese listening practice · European Portuguese · Curated for intermediate learners
What is “estar a” + infinitive in European Portuguese?
To say something is happening right now, Brazil uses estar + -ndo: está funcionando, estou comendo. Portugal uses estar a + the plain infinitive: está a funcionar, estou a comer. Same meaning, different machinery — and it is the single fastest way to place a speaker. Both are standard Portuguese; neither is a corruption of the other, and speakers on both sides understand both without effort.
The construction runs through the other tenses too: estava a chover (“it was raining”), vou estar a trabalhar. Parts of southern Portugal, notably the Alentejo and Algarve, do keep the -ndo gerund. This clip is European Portuguese throughout and hands you the pattern in a full sentence: quando a tiroide não está a funcionar corretamente, podem surgir diversos problemas de saúde.