Breakdown of Meu filho gosta de desenhar estrelas e uma grande montanha atrás da casa.
Questions & Answers about Meu filho gosta de desenhar estrelas e uma grande montanha atrás da casa.
In Portuguese, the verb gostar always needs the preposition de before what you like.
Basic patterns:
- gostar de + noun
- Eu gosto de música. = I like music.
- gostar de + infinitive (verb)
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar. = My son likes to draw.
So:
- ✔️ gosta de desenhar = correct
- ✖️ gosta desenhar = incorrect (missing the required de)
- ✖️ gosta desenhar de = incorrect (preposition in the wrong place)
Think of de as glued to gostar, not to the verb that follows:
- gostar de X (X can be a thing or an action)
Both are possible, but there is a difference in usage:
- In Brazilian Portuguese, it’s very common and natural to say:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar.
- O meu filho also exists, but it sounds a bit more emphatic, or more like European Portuguese:
- O meu filho gosta de desenhar. (more typical in Portugal)
General rule (especially in Brazil):
- With close family members (pai, mãe, filho, filha, irmão, etc.), possessive usually comes without the article:
- meu pai, minha mãe, meu filho, minha filha
So in Brazil, meu filho is the most natural everyday choice here.
Both gender and the possessive change:
- Meu filho (my son) → minha filha (my daughter)
And the rest of the sentence stays the same:
- Minha filha gosta de desenhar estrelas e uma grande montanha atrás da casa.
= My daughter likes to draw stars and a big mountain behind the house.
By default, adjectives usually come after the noun in Portuguese:
- uma montanha grande = a big mountain
However, some common adjectives (like grande, belo, bom, mau, etc.) can also appear before the noun. When they come before, it can sound a bit more natural, emotional, or stylistic, not just descriptive.
In this sentence:
- uma grande montanha is perfectly natural and very common.
- uma montanha grande is also grammatically correct.
Sometimes position changes nuances, especially with grande:
- um grande homem = a great man (morally / in importance)
- um homem grande = a big man (physically large)
Here, both orders would just mean “a big mountain”. The writer chose uma grande montanha, which sounds very natural in this context.
The sentence is describing what he typically draws:
- estrelas (plural) = many stars
- uma grande montanha (singular) = one big mountain
The idea is something like:
- He likes to draw lots of stars and one big mountain (in the same drawing or in general).
It’s completely normal in Portuguese to mix plural and singular like this. If you changed it, you would change the meaning:
- desenhar estrelas e grandes montanhas = to draw stars and big mountains (many mountains)
- desenhar estrela e uma grande montanha = one star and one big mountain (sounds unusual, but possible in the right context)
As written, the most natural interpretation for a native speaker is:
- He likes to draw stars and a big mountain that is behind the house (in the picture).
So atrás da casa is usually understood as describing the mountain, not the action of drawing.
If you wanted to clearly say he draws behind the house (physically located behind the house), you’d usually change the word order or add commas:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar, atrás de casa, estrelas e uma grande montanha.
(He likes to draw, behind the house, stars and a big mountain.) - Meu filho gosta de desenhar estrelas e uma grande montanha atrás de casa.
(Also possible, but still a bit ambiguous; context would decide.)
In practice, context often makes it clear, but grammatically, atrás da casa is closer to montanha here.
Atrás de means behind.
When it’s followed by a feminine noun with the article a, there is a contraction:
- atrás de + a casa → atrás da casa
So:
- de + a = da
More examples:
- ao lado de + a escola → ao lado da escola = next to the school
- perto de + a igreja → perto da igreja = near the church
If the noun were masculine:
- atrás de + o carro → atrás do carro (de + o = do)
Yes, but the nuance can change slightly:
- atrás da casa = behind the house (a specific house)
- atrás de casa
- often used in the sense of “behind the house where we live / behind the house in question”
- feels a bit more generic or “my/our house” without explicitly saying it
In many real-life Brazilian contexts, atrás de casa and atrás da casa may both be understood as “behind the house”, with little practical difference. Context decides how specific it feels.
Yes, in standard Portuguese, when de comes right before a definite article (o, a, os, as), you must contract:
- de + a = da → atrás da casa
- de + o = do → atrás do carro
- de + as = das → atrás das árvores
- de + os = dos → atrás dos prédios
So:
- ✔️ atrás da casa
- ✖️ atrás de a casa (not used in normal speech or writing)
Portuguese infinitives do not use “to” the way English does. The base form of the verb already is the infinitive:
- desenhar = to draw
- comer = to eat
- falar = to speak
So in Portuguese:
- gosta de desenhar = likes to draw
- There is no extra word like “to”; the infinitive ending -ar, -er, -ir plays that role.
The de belongs to gostar, not to the verb after it:
- gostar de X
- X can be a noun (música) or a verb (desenhar).
Yes, that is grammatically correct, but it sounds unnecessarily repetitive in Portuguese.
Natural Portuguese often avoids repeating the same verb when it’s understood:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar estrelas e uma grande montanha.
You would only repeat desenhar for strong emphasis or if you want to clearly separate the two activities:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar estrelas e (também) desenhar paisagens.
(even there, many speakers would still drop the second desenhar)
- desenhar = to draw (using pencil, pen, crayon, etc.; lines and shapes)
- pintar = to paint (using paint, brush, colors)
So:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar. = My son likes to draw.
- Meu filho gosta de pintar. = My son likes to paint.
You could also combine them:
- Meu filho gosta de desenhar e pintar.
They are two very characteristic Portuguese sounds:
lh (in filho)
- Similar to the “lli” in “million” said quickly in many English accents.
- Not exactly “lyo”, but close: fi-lyo.
- IPA: /ˈfi.ʎu/ (Brazilian pronunciation varies, sometimes /ˈfi.u/ in very casual speech, but /ʎ/ is the target sound).
nh (in montanha)
- Similar to the “ny” in “canyon” or “onion”.
- mon-ta-nya (one smooth sound).
- IPA: /mõˈtɐ.ɲa/ (Brazilian).
Practice pairs:
- filho (son) – milho (corn) — both have lh.
- manha (trick) – montanha (mountain) — both have nh (note: manhã “morning” has nasal ã + nh).
It’s simply a property of the verb gostar in Portuguese:
it requires the preposition de before its object.
Compare:
- Eu gosto de desenhar.
- Eu gosto de música.
- Eu amo desenhar. (no de)
- Eu amo música. (no de)
- Eu adoro desenhar. (no de)
So:
- gostar de X
- amar X
- adorar X
You just have to memorize gostar de as a fixed pattern.