Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Brazil): Hoje o tempo está bom para caminhar no bairro. - Today the weather is good for walking in the neighborhood.

Time (duration, abstract time)
- Não tenho tempo hoje. = I don’t have time today.
Weather
- O tempo está bom. = The weather is good.
- O tempo está ruim. = The weather is bad.

In Hoje o tempo está bom para caminhar no bairro, context makes it clear we’re talking about weather, because it’s “good for walking in the neighborhood,” which is a weather-related idea. Native speakers automatically understand o tempo here as “the weather,” not “the time.”

Why do we say o tempo está bom and not o tempo é bom?

Portuguese uses:

estar for temporary, changeable states
ser for permanent, defining characteristics

Weather is always changing, so you use estar:

O tempo está bom. = The weather is (right now) good.
O tempo está ruim hoje. = The weather is bad today.

If you said O tempo é bom, it would sound like you’re describing some permanent, general property of the weather, which is unusual in this kind of sentence. So está is the natural choice.

Why is there a definite article: o tempo, not just tempo?

Portuguese uses definite articles much more than English. With weather, Brazilians normally say:

O tempo está bom. (literally “The weather is good.”)
O tempo está feio. (The weather is ugly/bad.)

Saying just tempo está bom is ungrammatical. You almost always need o with tempo when you mean “the weather” in this kind of sentence.

Could I say Hoje está bom para caminhar no bairro and drop o tempo?

Yes, that’s natural Brazilian Portuguese:

Hoje está bom para caminhar no bairro.
(Literally: “Today it’s good for walking in the neighborhood.”)

Here está bom has an implicit subject (like English “it’s good”), and context tells you we’re talking about the weather. This version is actually very common in speech. Both:

Hoje o tempo está bom para caminhar no bairro.
Hoje está bom para caminhar no bairro.

are correct and natural.

Why do we use para caminhar and not something like para caminhar-se?

In Brazilian Portuguese, the verb caminhar (to walk) is normally not reflexive. You just say:

Eu gosto de caminhar. = I like to walk.
É bom caminhar de manhã. = It’s good to walk in the morning.

So you say para caminhar (“for walking” / “to walk”) with no se.
Caminhar-se is not used in this sense and would sound wrong here.

What’s the difference between caminhar, andar, and passear?

All can involve walking, but with different nuances:

caminhar – to walk, often with a sense of exercise or going for a walk
- Vou caminhar no parque. = I’m going to go for a walk in the park.
andar – to walk, but also to go around / move / ride (very general)
- Ele não consegue andar. = He can’t walk.
- Andei pela cidade ontem. = I walked around the city yesterday.
passear – to stroll, go out for leisure, to go for a walk/drive/trip
- Vamos passear no shopping. = Let’s go hang out at the mall.

In your sentence, caminhar fits well because “the weather is good for walking” feels a bit like going for a purposeful or healthy walk around the neighborhood.

Could I say andar no bairro instead of caminhar no bairro?

You could, and people will understand, but the nuance changes slightly:

caminhar no bairro – more like “to go for a walk” in the neighborhood
andar no bairro – more neutral “to walk around” there, or simply “to be walking in that area”

In this specific “good weather” sentence, caminhar sounds a bit more natural and closer to the English idea of “going for a walk.”

Why is it no bairro and not em bairro or no meu bairro?

no = em + o (in + the), and bairro is masculine, so:

em + o bairro → no bairro = in the neighborhood

Some options and meanings:

no bairro – in the neighborhood (probably my/our neighborhood, understood from context)
no meu bairro – in my neighborhood (explicitly “my”)
em bairro – “in (a) neighborhood” is technically possible but odd in this context; it sounds too generic or abstract.

In everyday conversation, no bairro is the normal way to say “around the neighborhood,” usually your own.

What’s the difference between no bairro and pelo bairro?

Both can be used with walking, but:

no bairro – “in the neighborhood” (location)
- Vou caminhar no bairro. = I’m going to walk in the neighborhood.
pelo bairro (por + o bairro) – “around/through the neighborhood” (movement through the area)
- Vou caminhar pelo bairro. = I’m going to walk around the neighborhood.

In your sentence, no bairro is fine. If you want to emphasize the idea of walking around, through different streets, pelo bairro is a bit more vivid.

Why is it para caminhar and not pra caminhar if Brazilians say pra a lot?

In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, people very often pronounce para as pra:

Hoje o tempo está bom pra caminhar no bairro.

In writing, especially in neutral or more careful writing, para is preferred:

Hoje o tempo está bom para caminhar no bairro.

Both are correct; pra is just an informal/colloquial shortening of para.

Is the word order fixed, or could I say O tempo hoje está bom…?

The word order is flexible. All of these are grammatically correct:

Hoje o tempo está bom para caminhar no bairro.
O tempo hoje está bom para caminhar no bairro.
O tempo está bom hoje para caminhar no bairro.

Differences are mostly about emphasis:

Starting with Hoje highlights today.
Moving hoje after o tempo highlights the weather first and then specifies “today.”

The original Hoje o tempo está bom… is very natural and common.

How do you pronounce bairro, and why is the rr so strong?

Pronunciation (Brazilian):

bai-: like English “bye”
-rro: the rr is a strong, breathy h sound in most of Brazil (like the h in “house,” sometimes a bit stronger), and the o is like “o” in “got” (but shorter).

Rough approximation: “BYE-ho” (with a strong h in the middle).

In Brazilian Portuguese, rr between vowels (as in bairro) is usually pronounced as this strong h sound, not like the English “r.”