O karaokê tem uma cabine.

The karaoke venue has a booth.

Breakdown of O karaokê tem uma cabine.

• ter: to have
• uma: a
• o karaokê: karaoke
• a cabine: the booth

Questions & Answers about O karaokê tem uma cabine.

Why is there a definite article in o karaokê?

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English. So o karaokê is natural when you mean the karaoke place or the karaoke venue.

In English, you might often just say Karaoke has a booth in some contexts, but in Portuguese, using o is very common when talking about a specific thing already known in the conversation.

Is karaokê masculine? Is that why it uses o?

Yes. In this sentence, karaokê is treated as a masculine noun, so it takes o.

That does not necessarily mean there is a deep logical reason for the gender; many borrowed words simply get assigned a grammatical gender in Portuguese. Here, the standard and natural form is o karaokê.

Why is it tem and not têm?

Because the subject is singular: o karaokê.

• tem = has for ele/ela/você or any singular noun
• têm = have for eles/elas/vocês or any plural noun

So:

• O karaokê tem uma cabine.
• Os karaokês têm cabines.

The circumflex in têm helps show the plural form.

What exactly is tem here?