No supermercado, eu paguei com Pix porque não tinha troco.

Because no is the standard contraction of em + o. In Portuguese, these contractions are normally required:

• em + o = no
• em + a = na
• em + os = nos
• em + as = nas

So no supermercado means in/at the supermarket.

Not always. Portuguese often drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows the person. Paguei already means I paid.

Adding eu can make the sentence a little clearer or more emphatic, but No supermercado, paguei com Pix... would also be natural.

This spelling keeps the hard g sound of pagar.

In Portuguese, g before e or i would normally sound like the s in measure. To keep the hard /g/ sound, Portuguese uses gu before e:

• pagar → paguei
• chegar → cheguei

So paguei is both the correct spelling and the correct pronunciation pattern.

Pix is Brazil’s instant electronic payment system. People use it constantly for transfers and purchases, so pagar com Pix is very everyday Brazilian Portuguese.

It is capitalized because Pix is the name of the system.

Portuguese normally uses com to express the method or means used to pay:

• pagar com cartão
• pagar com dinheiro
• pagar com Pix

Even though English often uses by, Portuguese usually prefers com in this kind of sentence.

Here porque means because, so it is written as one word.

This is part of a very common Portuguese distinction:

• porque = because
• por que = why / for what reason
• por quê = why, usually at the end of a question
• porquê = the noun the reason

So in this sentence, porque is correct because it introduces the reason.

Troco means change, meaning the money you get back after paying with cash.

So não tinha troco means there was no change available, or the cashier/store did not have change.

Because troco is being used in a general, indefinite sense: there wasn’t any change.

If you said não tinha o troco, it would sound more like didn’t have the specific change that was expected or owed.

The subject is not stated explicitly, and tinha can fit more than one subject depending on context. In everyday use, this sentence usually means the cashier, the store, or the supermarket did not have change — or simply that there was no change available.

If you wanted to make it clearly mean I didn’t have change, you would usually say porque eu não tinha troco.

Tinha is the imperfect tense, and it works well for a background situation or ongoing condition in the past. The idea is that the lack of change was the situation at the time of payment.

So the sentence means something like: I paid with Pix because there wasn’t change available at that moment.

Não teve troco is possible in some contexts, but não tinha troco sounds more natural and idiomatic here.

Yes. Portuguese word order is flexible. For example:

• Eu paguei com Pix no supermercado porque não tinha troco.
• Porque não tinha troco, eu paguei com Pix no supermercado.

The original sentence is very natural. Starting with No supermercado simply sets the scene first.

Yes. Some common alternatives are:

• ...porque estava sem troco. = ...because they were out of change.
• ...porque não havia troco. = more formal, ...because there was no change.
• ...porque o caixa não tinha troco. = ...because the cashier didn’t have change.

The original porque não tinha troco is still a very normal, everyday Brazilian Portuguese way to say it.