There are three ways that Brazilians ask, "what happened?": (1) O que aconteceu?; (2) O que foi?; (3) O que houve? (verb HAVER).
And they often mix these together! Ordered by popularity they are:
O que aconteceu?
You'll often hear it said like this:
O que é que aconteceu?
➜ literally: What is (it) that happened?
In either case, Brazilians are very likely to swallow the "o" as well as adding an extra "que". The result can sound like: Que que aconteceu?
Que que aconteceu?
ACONTECEU actually ranks at #215 on the list of most frequently used Portuguese words (download the list here). It's something you need to be able to express easily. There are other - very popular - other ways of saying the same thing: What happened? ...
O que foi?
The foi comes from the verb SER. You are literally saying: What was. In this instance, Brazilians are likely to swallow the "o" or the entire "o que"!
O que foi na reunião?
➜ What happened at the meeting?
This is, of course, SER is the preterite perfect (the simple past) tense -- the same conjugation as the verb IR. I often don't really know what verb I'm conjugating as I think of the past tense of these as the same. For example, Como foi a reunião? - translates as: How did the meeting GO? just as well.
O que houve?
Using the verb HAVER.
This is one usage of HAVER that's very common. You'll often hear simply: Que houve?
O que houve ontem?
➜ What happened yesterday?
From our online Portuguese course.
Grammar: acontecer ➜ to happen, occur
acontecer
to happen
euaconteço
você, eleacontece
nósacontecemos
vocês, elesacontecem
Complete conjugation.
O que aconteceu? ➜ What happened?
Acontece toda hora! ➜ It happens all the time!
Portuguese verb HAVER
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