À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas, mas o mercado fica aberto.

At night, almost all the stores are closed, but the market is open.

Breakdown of À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas, mas o mercado fica aberto.

• mas: but
• a noite: the night
• o mercado: the market
• todas as: all the
• a loja: the store
• à: at the
• ficar: to stay
• quase: almost
• aberto: open
• fechado: closed

Questions & Answers about À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas, mas o mercado fica aberto.

Why does À noite have an accent, and what does it mean literally?

À noite literally comes from a + a noite (“to/at the night”), where:

• the first a = preposition “to/at”
• the second a = the feminine article “the”

In Portuguese these two a’s merge into à (this is called crase), written with a grave accent.

So à noite = “at night / in the evening” in English.
Both à noite and de noite (“at night”) are common in Brazilian Portuguese; à noite often sounds a bit more neutral/formal in writing, but in everyday speech they’re very close in meaning.

Could I say de noite instead of À noite?

Yes. You could say:

• À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas…
• De noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas…

Both are correct and natural in Brazilian Portuguese.

Very roughly:

• à noite can sound a bit more “standard” or neutral.
• de noite is very common in everyday speech.

There is no big meaning difference here; both will be understood as “at night.”

Why is the present tense ficam used instead of a future form like “will be closed”?

In Portuguese, the simple present is normally used for habits, routines, and general truths.

So ficam fechadas here means “(they) are closed (at that time, as a rule)”, not “they are closing right now.” The whole sentence means:

• À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas…
  = “At night, almost all the stores are (usually) closed…”

Using ficam (present) is the natural way to describe a regular pattern or schedule.

Why use ficam and not estão in ficam fechadas / fica aberto?

Both ficar and estar can be used with adjectives, but they have different nuances:

• estar + adjective = current state

  • As lojas estão fechadas. = “The stores are closed (right now).”

• ficar + adjective often adds the idea of “end up / become / remain / stay”:

  • As lojas ficam fechadas à noite.
    = “The stores (end up / remain / stay) closed at night.”
    → This sounds very natural for talking about schedules and regular behavior.

You could also say:

• À noite, quase todas as lojas estão fechadas, mas o mercado está aberto.

This is correct and common too. Using ficar just emphasizes the idea of how things are during that period (they stay that way at night).

What exactly does ficam fechadas mean grammatically?

Grammatically:

• ficam = 3rd person plural present of ficar
• fechadas = feminine plural form of the adjective fechado (“closed”)

So ficam fechadas = “(they) remain / are closed.”

The structure is:

• ficar + adjective → to be / remain / get in that state
  
  • ficar aberto = be/remain open
  • ficar limpo = become/remain clean
  • ficar cansado = become/get tired

Why is it fechadas (with -as) and aberto (with -o)?

Adjectives in Portuguese agree with the noun in gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural):

• lojas = feminine plural noun
  → adjective must be feminine plural: fechadas

  • as lojas fechadas (“the closed stores”)
  • as lojas ficam fechadas (“the stores are/remain closed”)

• mercado = masculine singular noun
  → adjective must be masculine singular: aberto

  • o mercado aberto (“the open market”)
  • o mercado fica aberto (“the market is/remains open”)

So the different endings just show agreement with lojas vs mercado.

Why do we repeat the verb and say mas o mercado fica aberto, instead of just mas o mercado aberto?

In Portuguese, as in English, a normal sentence needs a verb.

• mas o mercado fica aberto = full clause:

  • mas (but) + o mercado (subject) + fica (verb) + aberto (adjective)

• mas o mercado aberto (without fica) sounds like a fragment, similar to English “but the market open”. It’s not a complete, natural sentence in this context.

Sometimes Portuguese allows you to omit a repeated verb if the structure is very parallel and the context is obvious, but here a fluent speaker would normally keep fica.

Why is there a comma before mas?

Mas means “but”, and you normally put a comma before it when it introduces a contrasting clause:

• À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas, mas o mercado fica aberto.

This is very similar to English:

• “At night, almost all the stores are closed, but the market is open.”

So the comma before mas follows the usual punctuation rule for joining two clauses with “but.”

Why is it quase todas as lojas, and not something like todas as lojas quase ficam fechadas?

The position of quase (“almost”) changes the meaning:

• quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas
  = “almost all the stores are closed”
  → quase modifies todas as lojas (the quantity)

• todas as lojas quase ficam fechadas
  = literally “all the stores almost stay closed”
  → sounds like they almost get closed but not quite (odd here)

In real usage, to say “almost all the stores,” you put quase before todas:

• quase todas as lojas = “almost all the stores”

Could I change the order and say Quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas à noite?

Yes, that is perfectly correct and very natural:

• À noite, quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas…
• Quase todas as lojas ficam fechadas à noite…

Both mean the same thing.
Time expressions like à noite can appear at the beginning or end of the sentence; moving it just changes the emphasis a bit, not the basic meaning.

Why do we use as lojas and o mercado, not lojas / um mercado?

Portuguese uses definite articles (o, a, os, as) more often than English, even for general or “typical” things.

Here:

• as lojas = literally “the stores”
  → understood as “the stores in town / in this area”
• o mercado = “the market / the supermarket (we have in mind)”

If you said lojas ficam fechadas (without as) it would sound incomplete or unnatural.

Um mercado (“a market / a supermarket”) would sound like some random market, not a specific local one you and the listener know about. O mercado suggests a specific, known place (for example, the neighborhood grocery store).

What’s the difference in meaning between loja and mercado here?

In Brazilian Portuguese:

• loja = a store/shop in general: clothing store, shoe store, electronics store, etc.

  • lojas = “stores / shops”

• mercado (in this context) usually means a grocery store / small supermarket / mini‑market.

  • o mercado can mean “the local supermarket” or “the neighborhood grocery.”

So the sentence contrasts most stores (of all kinds) with the (grocery) market, which stays open.

Why is it ficam with lojas and fica with mercado?

It’s subject–verb agreement:

• lojas = plural → verb in 3rd person plural:
  • as lojas ficam (“the stores stay/are”)
• mercado = singular → verb in 3rd person singular:
  • o mercado fica (“the market stays/is”)

In the present tense of ficar:

• eu fico
• você / ele / ela fica
• nós ficamos
• vocês / eles / elas ficam

So lojas (they) → ficam; mercado (it) → fica.

How do you pronounce the key words in this sentence?

Approximate Brazilian Portuguese pronunciations (stressed syllables in CAPS; English-like hints):

• À noite → a NOI‑tchi

  • noite sounds like “NOY-chee” (one syllable turning into “noi” then “tchi”)

• quase → KWA‑zi (the s sounds like z)

• todas → TO‑das (both a’s like the a in “father” but shorter)

• as lojas → az LO‑zhas

  • as = “az”
  • lojas ≈ “LO‑zhahs” (the j like the s in “measure”)

• ficam → FI‑kãw

  • final -am in Brazil is nasal, like “ãw” / “uhng” but very quick

• fechadas → fe‑SHA‑das

  • ch like English “sh”

• mas → mas (the s like s in “bus”)

• o mercado → u mer‑KA‑du

  • o (before consonant) often sounds like “oo”
  • mercado ≈ “mer-KAH-doo”

• aberto → a‑BER‑tu (like “ah-BER-too”)

This should help you map spelling to sound when you hear Brazilians say the sentence.