É fácil reservar um hotel barato, mas às vezes ele fica muito distante.

It is easy to book a cheap hotel, but sometimes it is too far.

Breakdown of É fácil reservar um hotel barato, mas às vezes ele fica muito distante.

• ser: to be
• um: a
• muito: very
• às vezes: sometimes
• mas: but
• barato: cheap
• fácil: easy
• reservar: to book
• o hotel: the hotel
• distante: far

Questions & Answers about É fácil reservar um hotel barato, mas às vezes ele fica muito distante.

Why is é used here instead of está in "É fácil reservar um hotel barato"?

In Portuguese, the structure É fácil + infinitive is very common to express that doing something is generally easy. We use é (the verb "ser") for these broad statements about a characteristic or quality. Saying Está fácil would imply a temporary state, which is less common in this context.

What does às vezes literally mean, and can it be replaced with something else?

Às vezes literally means "at times" or "sometimes." It indicates that something happens occasionally, without a fixed frequency. You could replace it with other expressions like de vez em quando or ocasionalmente, but às vezes is the most natural everyday choice.

Why use ele ("he") to refer to hotel? Isn't hotel just an inanimate object?

In Portuguese, every noun has a grammatical gender (masculine or feminine). Hotel is masculine, so we use ele when referring back to it. It doesn't necessarily imply personification; it's just standard Portuguese to use masculine pronouns for masculine nouns.

Why do we say fica muito distante for location instead of using é or está?

The verb ficar is often used to talk about location or position, translating roughly to "to be located" in English. Saying ele fica muito distante means "it is located very far away." While é can also describe location in certain phrases, ficar is the more natural choice when emphasizing where something is situated.

Why is barato placed after hotel in "um hotel barato"?

In Portuguese, adjectives typically follow the noun when describing its qualities: hotel barato (literally "hotel cheap"). Placing the adjective after the noun in this case is the usual word order. If you move the adjective before the noun (barato hotel), it can sound awkward or overly emphatic, which is not typical in everyday speech.