We’ll cover prepositions in more detail in later units, but for now, let’s go over a few prepositional phrases that come up frequently within Portuguese questions. You’ll notice that the preposition always comes right before the question word:
Para
Para onde é que vais?Where are you headed to?
Para quem é este bolo?Who is this cake for?
Por
Por que razão dizes isso?What makes you say that?, Why do you say that?, Literal - For what reason do you say that?
Por onde vais?Which way are you going?, Literal - By where are you going?
De
De que estão a falar?What are you(pl.) talking about?
De quem estão a falar?Who are you(pl.) talking about?
Com
Com quem vais para casa?Whom are you going home with?
Com qual queres ficar?Which one do you want to keep?
Até
Até quando ficas em Coimbra?How long are you staying in Coimbra?, Until when do you stay in Coimbra?
Até onde foste?How far did you go?
A Few Others
Desde quando é que gostas de mostarda?Since when do you like mustard?
Em que lugar ficaram?Which place did they come in? (in a competition) , Literal - In what place did they stay?
A que museu vais?Which museum are you going to?
AMAZINGLY helpful omg
Por que razão dizes isso? – for which reason you say this
Is the letter “Y” not used in Portuguese, ie Nova Lorque, New York! the reason i ask is my family name is Lynch, how would that translate when asked to spell my name for example to book a restaurant?
Hi Robert, the letter y is not used in Portuguese words, but it still appears in plenty of foreign “loan” words, so it’s familiar. You can still use a y to spell your name. We actually just launched a guide to the alphabet so that you can learn how to spell your name and other important info: Portuguese Alphabet
Robert (and others), in case you’re still reading this, it’s actually Nova Iorque (not Nova Lorque). I instead of L. (Hard to tell the difference in certain fonts)
I’m going with Ėróburt Linchē. Closest way I can find to spelling your name in Portuguese that sounds like it is being said in English 🙂
Hi Molly, thanks for that. I had a quick look at the spelling unit and found it very helpful. Often in the past I have been handed a pen by Portuguese speakers when they try to write my name down, and when I try to book a restaurant by telephone, I just use, “Roberto”, it’s much easier
Can you help with any extra hints as to when “por” is used in questions, and when “para” is? I’m finding it rather unpredictable.
Thanks
It can definitely be tough to decide! It often comes down to continued exposure to different contexts in which each is used. Over time, it will start to feel more natural to use one or the other. Check out this Learning Note on Por vs Para: https://www.practiceportuguese.com/learning-notes/por-para/ . That should get you started with differentiating the two. 🙂
Thank you very much, Molly. Those notes do help, but I fear I’m going to carry on tripping up for a while…..
Don’t worry, you’re not alone! These are often confused. I was going to add that another way to think of it is that “para” is usually used to talk about direction (going to the school), whereas “por” is used to talk about the way you got there (passing by the school). “Para” is often used where we would say “in order to” in English. “Por” is often used where we would say “due to” or “because of”. “Por” is also used to talk about lengths of time (for two weeks). That doesn’t cover all the uses, but I hope it helps a little.:)
Thanks, Molly.
I have serious problems with the verb Ficar. It has so many meanings!!!
You’re right! It’s such a useful verb, but difficult to learn because of all the different uses. We’re actually working on a unit all about the verb ficar which should be ready pretty soon! 🙂
I went ahead and posted the Learning Note for the verb ficar here: https://www.practiceportuguese.com/learning-notes/how-to-use-the-verb-ficar/
The audio and the unit will be added later.
Thank you Molly
I appreciate your assistance.
Amadou
Muito obrigado pela ajuda. Esta lição é ótimo!
I’m curious what the reason is for que to written as quê when it is at the end of a sentence, and why quê instead of qué? I understand the change in pronounciation this introduces but I’m just wondering what the motivation is for doing this. My experience with the language so far is that more often than not the final vowel in words is de-stressed, not stressed. This question also applies to porque/porquê.
Olá, Peter. I’m just going to leave this Learning Note (Asking Questions in Portuguese) and this forum topic (What the que? ou Que o Que?) here for reference, since they’ll help everyone understand when to use que/quê or porque/porquê. As for why people came up with the versions ending in -ê (and why -ê instead of any other sound), I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that! 🙂
(1) Wouldn’t “Em que lugar ficaram?” better translate as ‘Where did they stay?’ instead of ‘Which place did they come in?’
(2) Is ‘Qual queres ficar’, in addition to ‘COM qual queres ficar?’, also a correct way of asking ‘Which one do you want to keep?’ Or is it necessary to include the ‘com’?
Olá, Whit.
(1) Both translations are correct, but in totally different contexts! The noun lugar can not only describe a physical location (in which case, the question “Em que lugar ficaram?” is correctly translated as “Where did they stay?”), but also a position in a ranking, e.g. in a competition. In this alternative context, it is fine to translate “Em que lugar ficaram?” as “Which place did they come in?”, which is what you see here.
(2) “Qual queres ficar?” wouldn’t be grammatically correct. You can ask “Com qual queres ficar?” or just “Qual queres?” (which one do you want?). This is because in this context, the verb ficar asks for the preposition com, so if you omit one, you have to omit the other.
Are “para” and “a” interchangeable when used with “ir”? I’ve just seen, in your flash-cards, “ela foi cedo para a praia” and then “eles foram a um restaurante”. Is there a difference?
Thanks
Good question! Check out this conversation here in the discussion forum (someone asked a similar question ): https://forum.practiceportuguese.com/t/a-or-para-with-verbs-of-motion/779/3. Joseph’s answer is helpful for clarifying the difference.
De quem está a falar? = Who are you talking about? Does it also mean – Who are you talking to?
“De quem está a falar?” can only mean “Who are you talking about?”. To ask “Who are you talking to?”, the preposition must be changed to “Com quem está a falar?” or “Para quem está a falar?”.
Doesn’t Em que lugar ficaram? translate to Where did they stay? as opposed to Which place did they come in?
Olá, Whit. You have actually asked this before, a couple comments higher up 🙂 Here’s what I wrote then:
(1) Both translations are correct, but in totally different contexts! The noun lugar can not only describe a physical location (in which case, the question “Em que lugar ficaram?” is correctly translated as “Where did they stay?”), but also a position in a ranking, e.g. in a competition. In this alternative context, it is fine to translate “Em que lugar ficaram?” as “Which place did they come in?”, which is what you see here.
Hi there!
Shouldn‘t „De que estão a falar?“ translate to „what am I talking about?“ as opposed to „what are you talking about?“?
Hi! De que estão a falar? could translate to either What are you (plural) talking about? or What are they talking about?, depending on the context. Here are the conjugations for the verb estar for reference: https://www.practiceportuguese.com/verb/estar/. Estou would be the conjugation used if we wanted to say What am I talking about?
Obrigada for the developers of the course and website, so easy to use and helpful to develop your listening skills, writing, grammar and spelling in Portuguese. Great job and keep up the good work!!!
Why, in the examples, do you only add “é que” in “Para onde é que vais?” and “Desde quando é que gostas a mostarda?” Thanks.
Olá, Bruce. It’s just to switch it up and to remind people that “é que” is an optional element in questions 🙂 It can be added or omitted with zero effect on the overall meaning or grammatical correctness.
Thanks very much for the quick response. I guess I can stop trying to figure out the hidden nuance that I thought I was missing;) “O que” é ok.
You have ” A que museu vais? Could you also say “A qual museu vais?
Olá, Stephen. Yes, you could – both are correct.
It’s a pity that this chapter isn’t translate in German. Because the Portuguese and the German are much closer in their way of asking questions than the English and the Portuguese.
For example
Bis wann? – até quando?
Seit wann? – Desde quando?
Our sentence construction with Präp – Questionword is exact than in Portuguese
So the translation to English makes a simple thing very difficult for me
Not being a native English speaker (but Dutch) I encounter the following problem frequently; ‘Até quando ficas em Coimbra?’ translates to; “how long are you staying…” In a flashcard situation I translate this to Portuguese as; “até quando estas (or estão) a ficar….” (would this actually be right?) But in Dutch we would say it just like in Portuguese: “Until when (or how long) (do) you stay in Coimbra.”
Likewise, when I read “whom are you going home with?” every time I’m tempted to use the present continuous instead of “with whom do you go home”. Like I’m used to in Dutch. Can anyone explain to me how to recognise these situations? So I don”t fall in the same trap every time.
Olá, Claudio! Right – English and Portuguese verb tenses/verbal structures don’t always align, as in your examples. Apart from simple memorization (which is unavoidable), also keep in mind that in Portuguese, we are usually strict about using our “Present Continuous” (estar a + infinitive) only for actually ongoing actions in the present. A sentence like “Whom are you going home with?” is usually referring to the near future (i.e. Who WILL you go home with?), in which case the “estar a” structure doesn’t apply.
In Asking Questions in Portuguese, Lesson 6, an example is given, “Desde quando estas em Portugal?” In an added note an alternative is suggested, “Ha quanto tempo estas em portugal?” Before I read the added note I had already had a thought, back to an earlier section of QUESTIONS and came up with my own alternative as, “Quanto e que estas em Portugal?” Is this legitimate, clumsy, other? Any additional guidance?
In this case, if you want to know for how long have someone been in Portugal you could either ask “Desde quando” (Since when) or “Há quanto tempo” (For how long).
Asking “Quanto TEMPO é que estás em Portugal?” – don’t forget to add the word “tempo” after “quanto”: quanto tempo = how long – (literally “How long are you in Portugal?”) means you’re asking for how long is he/she/they staying: “For how long are you [staying] in Portugal?”
Simply adding the “Há” (verb haver – to be, to exist) it changes the meaning of the question. “Há quanto tempo” (For how long have you been) is something like asking “how much time it is/exists [since you are in Portugal]”.
So:
Desde quando estás…? = Since when are you…?
Há quanto tempo estás…? = For how long have you been…?
Quanto tempo estás…? = For how long are you…?
English purists (guilty!) may resort to all sorts of acrobatics to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. (“For whom is the cake?” or “To which museum are you going?”) Hence, some of these translations come naturally.
It looks like you drop the é que from a question when you add a preposition. But then it come back in with the question “Desde quando é que gostas de mostarda”. Is there a rule to go by?
You can always add or remove ‘é que’ at will, including with prepositions, since it’s an optional element (although idiomatic). For example, ‘é que’ is part of the very first example, “Para onde é que vais?”, although it could simply be “Para onde vais?”. It was merely incidental that ‘é que’ was not included in most other examples here 🙂
Thanks Joseph. That makes sense.
Can you elaborate why on some cases you add é que and some cases not?
Why Por onde vais? And why Para onde é que vais?
What about the other examples on the page?
Olá! As noted in previous comments, “é que” is an optional element in questions 🙂 It can be added or omitted without a change in the overall meaning or grammatical correctness of the sentence. We switch it up from example to example to remind people of this flexibility. More on that subject here: Using “é que” in European Portuguese Questions | Practice Portuguese | Practice Portuguese