Questions

Forming basic questions is easy enough.  Just phrase what you want to say in the same way as you would a statement, but make it obvious that it is a question by the inflection in your voice (or by a question mark if writing).  For example…

Easy eh?  You also need to be aware of other ways of asking questions in Portuguese.  Merely turning a statement into a question, whilst useful, does not provide a mechanism for every type of question that you might want to ask.  For example ‘why do you walk home?’; ‘what are you eating?’ – these types of question make use of interrogative pronouns and adverbs:  why; what; where; when; which; who; how.  Here are their equivalents in Portuguese:

One more that you need to know is ‘será que…’, which can be used to start a question requiring a yes or no answer.  Literally, this means ‘it will be that…’, but a better translation might be ‘is it true that…?’.  It can also be translated as ‘I wonder if…?’.  We don’t really have a direct equivalent in English, but virtually any question that has a yes or no answer could probably be phrased using ‘será que…’.  For example:

You’ll get used to it, trust me.

Comments

Difference between que, o que and qual Written by Lee on 2007-11-10 10:12:41 IP: 81.84.90.41 I am just confused - what is the different between que, o que and qual?

Que, o que, qual Written by Administrator on 2007-11-10 10:28:09 IP: 80.3.252.130 Good question. In some cases, they appear to be interchangeable to some extent (ie. you can choose whether to use 'qual' or 'o que'). However, generally, you use 'qual' when there is a limited range of possible answers (eg. 'qual é a diferença entre...?' [what is the difference between...]; 'quais são as chances de...?' [what are the chances of...]), 'que' (on its own) when you mention what type of information you are looking for as part of the question (eg. 'que tipo de comida é?' what type of food is it? - you have mentioned what the 'what' refers to, ie. type of food), and 'o que' as a more general interrogation (eg. 'o que acha sobre isso?' [what do you think about this?])

porquê/por que Written by Maria on 2010-08-12 02:43:43 IP: 90.192.246.66 Just to clarify, does this mean that porquê is only used on its own, not as part of a sentence?    Thank you

porquê/por que Written by Administrator on 2010-08-26 10:57:04 IP: 80.6.207.229 As far as I am aware, it is only used on its own (ie. the thing being enquired about is not mentioned as part of the question), but that does not totally preclude it from being used in a sentence. (eg. 'We might well ask ourselves: "Why?"' or 'Your hands are dirty - why?')

Aceita/Aceitam Written by Adelaide Doyle on 2011-02-23 16:38:50 IP: 142.179.224.177 I have been taking the Byki course in continental português. They use the phrase "Aceita cartão de crédito?" and "Äceitam cartão de crédito?" interchangibly. How do I know when to use which? They also do this with "fecha/ fecham" and "abre/ abrem." I have asked them and they cannot give me an answer. Can you help?

Aceita/Aceitam Written by Administrator on 2011-02-23 16:40:42 IP: 213.107.108.12 Aceita, fecha, and abre are used when you are talking to an individual. Aceitam, fecham, and abrem are used when you are talking to a group.

Thanks Written by Adelaide on 2011-02-24 06:20:36 IP: 142.179.224.177 I thought that might be the way it was. Thanks so much. I do appreciate your site! Lots of help here. You make it quite clear. Obrigada!

como vs qual Written by larry on 2012-07-05 11:02:11 IP: 174.62.77.21 If you can use como to mean "what" and "qual" also means what why are they not interchangeably when asking what?

Como vs Qual Written by Administrator on 2012-07-05 11:12:15 IP: 82.14.68.33 A lot of these words overlap each other in meaning. The word 'what' in English can take on several different shades of meaning depending on context. These will not always match up exactly with a counterpart in another language. The word 'como' in Portuguese for example, also takes on several different shades of meaning, but it doesn't exactly match any single English word ('como' can mean 'what', 'how', 'like', or 'as').     Sometimes where we would use a single word in English, 2 different words would be required in Portuguese depending on the exact meaning. In other cases, 2 words can be directly interchangeable, and still other times the meaning can stay the same but you need to change the rest of the wording to fit. For example, 'qual é o seu nome' and 'como se chama' both mean 'what is your name' (so the meaning remains the same), but the phrasing is different (the former being literally the same as in English, the 2nd being 'how do you call yourself', but in both cases we would translate it as 'what is your name?').

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