Tropeçávamos

Tropeçávamos is the first-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Portuguese verb tropeçar, meaning "we were stumbling" or "we used to stumble." The form is used in both Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese to describe past actions that were ongoing or habitual.

The imperfect tense expresses actions or states in the past that were not completed, were repeated, or served as background in a narrative. Tropeçávamos can therefore indicate repeated stumbling episodes, ongoing difficulty, or a habitual behavior in a past time frame. The spelling uses the cedilla ç in tropeçar to preserve the soft s sound before the vowels a, o, or u.

Example sentences illustrate its use: "Quando éramos crianças, tropeçávamos nas pedras do caminho." and "Nós tropeçávamos sempre na escada molhada quando chovia." In both cases, the sentence conveys a recurring past action rather than a single event.

Tropeçávamos is a verb form, not a noun or adjective, and it commonly appears in descriptive or narrative contexts, such as memoirs, oral histories, or literary prose, to evoke past experiences of frequently occurring stumbles or challenges.