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Questions & Answers about Este café é forte.
What’s the difference between este café, esse café, and aquele café?
Este refers to something close to the speaker (“this coffee here”), esse to something close to the listener or just mentioned (“that coffee by you/that coffee we talked about”), and aquele to something distant from both (“that coffee over there”). In Brazil most people use esse more generally, but if you’re pointing at a cup in front of you you’d normally say este.
Why isn’t there a definite article o before café? Could I say Este o café é forte?
When you use a demonstrative (este/esse/aquele) as a determiner, you normally drop the article. Este café already means “this coffee,” so adding o would sound clumsy or old‐fashioned. You could say O café é forte (“The coffee is strong”) or Este café é forte, but not Este o café é forte in everyday speech.
Why is the verb é (from ser) used instead of está (from estar) here?
In Portuguese ser describes inherent or permanent qualities. Saying Este café é forte means “this coffee has the intrinsic characteristic of being strong.” If you said Este café está forte, it would sound odd—like you’re judging its strength temporarily or comparing it to an earlier sample.
Why is the adjective forte placed after the noun café, instead of before?
The typical word order in Portuguese is noun + adjective. Placing adjectives before a noun can add emphasis or a poetic tone (e.g., a forte tempestade), but for neutral descriptions you’ll almost always say café forte rather than forte café.
Does forte change for gender or number?
Forte ends in -e, so it’s the same for masculine and feminine in the singular (café forte, salada forte). In the plural you add -s: cafés fortes, saladas fortes. Only adjectives ending in -o (like bonito) switch to -a for feminine.
Why does café have an accent mark on the é?
The acute accent (´) on é shows that the stress falls on the last syllable and that it’s an open vowel /ɛ/. Without the accent it would follow default stress rules (which usually fall on the penultimate syllable for words ending in a vowel), so you’d mispronounce it.
How do you pronounce café and forte in Brazilian Portuguese?
A simple guide:
- café = kah-ˈFEH (stress on -fé)
- forte = ˈFOR-chee (the final -r is a guttural or soft “h” sound in many regions, so “FOR-chee”).
Remember the é is open (/ɛ/) and the -r in coda positions in Brazil often sounds like [ʁ] or [h].
Can I use other words or intensifiers to say “strong coffee”?
Yes. Common options:
- Este café é muito forte (“very strong”)
- Este café é bem forte (“quite strong”)
- Este café está fortíssimo (uses the superlative “very, very strong”)
You can also choose synonyms like intenso (“intense”) or encorpado (“full-bodied”) depending on what aspect of “strong” you want to highlight.