Eu gosto do cheiro do café.

I like the smell of coffee.

Breakdown of Eu gosto do cheiro do café.

• eu: I
• gostar de: to like
• o café: the coffee
• do: of the
• o cheiro: the scent

Questions & Answers about Eu gosto do cheiro do café.

Why does gostar need de here?

Because gostar is normally used with the preposition de in Portuguese.

So Portuguese says:

• gostar de algo = to like something
• gostar de fazer algo = to like doing something

That is why you get:

• Eu gosto de música.
• Eu gosto de viajar.
• Eu gosto do cheiro do café.

A very common English-speaker mistake is trying to say Eu gosto o café. In standard Portuguese, that is not correct. With gostar, you normally need de.

What does do mean, and why does it appear twice?

Do is a contraction of de + o.

In this sentence, it happens two times for two different reasons:

• gosto de o cheiro → gosto do cheiro
• o cheiro de o café → o cheiro do café

So the full structure underneath is basically:

• Eu gosto de o cheiro de o café

But Portuguese normally contracts de + o into do, so the natural form is:

• Eu gosto do cheiro do café

Other common contractions are:

• de + a = da
• de + os = dos
• de + as = das

Why is eu there? Can I leave it out?

Yes, you can leave it out.

Portuguese often allows the subject pronoun to be omitted when it is clear from the verb:

• Eu gosto do cheiro do café.
• Gosto do cheiro do café.

Both are natural.

In Brazilian Portuguese, people often use subject pronouns more than in some other varieties, so eu does not sound strange at all. It can also add a little emphasis or clarity.

Why is there an article in o cheiro and do café when English would not always use the?

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English.

So a phrase like o cheiro do café is very natural, even if English might simply say the smell of coffee or even think of it more generally.

A good thing to remember is:

• English and Portuguese do not use articles in exactly the same way.
• Portuguese often sounds more natural with o / a / os / as where English would omit the.

So even if the English translation does not match word-for-word, the Portuguese structure is normal.

Is cheiro do café the same as cheiro de café?

They are close, but there can be a small difference in feel.

• cheiro do café = the smell of the coffee / the smell coming from the coffee
• cheiro de café = smell of coffee / coffee smell, often more general

In everyday speech, both can sound natural depending on context.

For example:

• Eu adoro o cheiro de café.
  This often sounds like coffee smell in general.

• O cheiro do café está ótimo.
  This can sound more like the smell of this coffee, the coffee here, the coffee that was just made.

So the sentence you were given is correct, but learners should know that cheiro de café is also very common.

Can I say Eu gosto de café instead?

Not if you want the same meaning.

• Eu gosto de café. = I like coffee.
• Eu gosto do cheiro do café. = I like the smell of coffee.

So if you remove cheiro, you change the meaning.

Compare:

• Eu gosto de café. = I like coffee as a drink / in general.
• Eu gosto do café. = I like the coffee / this coffee.
• Eu gosto do cheiro do café. = I like the smell of coffee.

Does cheiro mean a nice smell, or just any smell?

Cheiro usually means smell in a general sense, and very often it feels neutral or pleasant in everyday use.

So with coffee, cheiro sounds very natural because coffee is usually thought of as having a pleasant smell.

If you want a more explicitly pleasant word, you might also hear:

• aroma = aroma

For a bad smell, Portuguese often uses stronger words such as:

• mau cheiro = bad smell
• fedor = stink

So in this sentence, cheiro is the normal everyday word.

How is Eu gosto do cheiro do café pronounced in Brazilian Portuguese?

A rough pronunciation for an English speaker is:

eh-ooh GOS-too doo SHAY-roo doo ka-FEH

A few notes:

• gosto has stress on the first syllable
• cheiro starts with a sh sound
• café has stress on the last syllable
• the r in cheiro is usually a light tapped r in Brazilian Portuguese

A more technical approximation is:

/ew ˈɡɔs.tu du ˈʃej.ɾu du kaˈfɛ/

Pronunciation varies by region, so do not worry if native speakers sound a little different from one another.

Why does café have an accent mark?

The accent in café shows that the stress falls on the last syllable:

• ca-FÉ

It also helps show the vowel quality of é, which is an open eh sound.

Accent marks in Portuguese are important because they often tell you:

• which syllable is stressed
• sometimes how the vowel is pronounced

So café is not just decorative spelling; the accent tells you how to say the word correctly.

Is gosto a verb here? I thought gosto could also mean taste.

Yes, gosto is a verb here.

In this sentence, gosto is the first-person singular form of gostar:

• eu gosto = I like

It is true that gosto can also be a noun in other contexts, meaning taste or preference:

• Tenho gosto por música clássica. = I have a taste for classical music.
• Isso é de mau gosto. = That is in bad taste.

But in Eu gosto do cheiro do café, it is definitely the verb to like.