Breakdown of É importante que você tome água para ficar mais saudável.
Questions & Answers about É importante que você tome água para ficar mais saudável.
Because the structure É importante que + (subject) + verb usually triggers the present subjunctive in Portuguese.
- você toma = indicative (a statement of fact / habit)
- que você tome = subjunctive (a recommendation, importance, necessity, desire, etc.)
So tome is the present subjunctive form of tomar for você.
This sentence uses an impersonal expression: É + adjective + que + clause. Common adjectives here are importante, necessário, bom, melhor, recomendável. They introduce an idea like it’s important/necessary that…, and the following clause typically takes the subjunctive:
- É importante que você tome...
- É necessário que ele faça...
- É melhor que a gente vá...
In most everyday Brazilian Portuguese, you normally keep the subject here: que você tome.
Dropping it (que tome) is possible but sounds more like written, formal, or slightly “instruction manual” style, and it can feel ambiguous (who should do it?). If you mean you, que você tome is the natural choice.
Because que introduces a subordinate clause (roughly: that + sentence). Portuguese uses que very frequently in this kind of structure:
- É importante que...
- Acho que...
- É possível que...
English sometimes omits that, but Portuguese generally keeps que.
Both work, but they have slightly different “everyday” feel in Brazil:
- beber água = neutral, literal “to drink water”
- tomar água = extremely common in daily speech, often sounds more natural in advice/health contexts
You’ll hear both; tomar água is very idiomatic in Brazil.
para + infinitive expresses purpose: para ficar... = “in order to become / to end up / to stay”.
ficar is often used for a change of state:
- ficar mais saudável = “to become healthier”
It’s a common way to talk about results, especially with health, emotions, and conditions (e.g., ficar doente, ficar feliz, ficar melhor).
Both exist, but they differ in structure and tone:
- para + infinitive (para ficar) is the most common and streamlined when the subject is clear.
- para que + subjunctive (para que você fique) is also correct, often a bit more explicit or formal.
In this sentence, para ficar mais saudável is the natural, concise choice.
It depends on who is becoming healthier:
- If the subject is você, it’s often left as mais saudável in general advice, but you can match gender if you want:
- speaking to a man: mais saudável
- speaking to a woman: mais saudável (often still used) or mais saudável remains unchanged because saudável doesn’t change for gender.
Key point: saudável is a “two-ending” adjective in practice—it stays saudável for masculine/feminine; only the plural changes: saudáveis.
In Brazilian Portuguese (common “standard-ish” pronunciation):
- É sounds like eh (open e)
- que is usually kee (often like ki)
- você sounds like vo-SEH (with the stress on the last syllable)
- tome sounds like TOH-mee (stress on to-)
- água sounds like AH-gwa (the gu gives a gw sound)
In Portuguese, você historically comes from a third-person form (vossa mercê) and it takes third-person singular verb forms:
- você toma / você tome (same verb endings as ele/ela)
So even though você means “you,” it conjugates like “he/she” in terms of verb endings.
You can vary it, but some versions sound more natural than others:
- Very natural: É importante que você tome água para ficar mais saudável.
- Also natural with emphasis: Para ficar mais saudável, é importante que você tome água.
- Less natural: moving água far away from tome usually sounds awkward, since tomar água is a tight verb+object unit.
Yes, Portuguese often offers options with different tones:
- Você precisa tomar água para ficar mais saudável. (more direct: “you need to…”)
- É importante você tomar água... (common in speech; many Brazilians use this, even though É importante que você tome... is more “textbook”/formal)
- É bom você tomar água... (gentler: “it’s good for you to…”)