Júlia prefere assar o frango com alho, mas Ana gosta de fritar cebola no óleo.

Júlia prefers to roast the chicken with garlic, but Ana likes to fry onion in oil.

Breakdown of Júlia prefere assar o frango com alho, mas Ana gosta de fritar cebola no óleo.

• Ana: Ana
• gostar de: to like
• com: with
• mas: but

Questions & Answers about Júlia prefere assar o frango com alho, mas Ana gosta de fritar cebola no óleo.

Why are assar and fritar in the infinitive form?

Because after verbs like preferir and gostar de, Portuguese often uses another verb in the infinitive.

• Júlia prefere assar o frango = Júlia prefers to roast the chicken.
• Ana gosta de fritar cebola = Ana likes to fry onion.

This works much like English to roast / to fry, except Portuguese usually does not need a separate word like to before the infinitive.

Why is it prefere assar, but gosta de fritar?

Because the verbs behave differently:

• preferir is followed directly by another verb:
  • prefere assar
• gostar normally requires de:
  • gosta de fritar

So you should learn gostar as gostar de.

Examples:

• Eu gosto de cozinhar.
• Ela gosta de dançar.

But:

• Eu prefiro cozinhar em casa.
• Ela prefere dançar samba.

What does no óleo mean, and why is it one word?