Word
A capa do livro é bonita, mas o índice me ajudou mais do que eu esperava.
Meaning
The book cover is beautiful, but the table of contents helped me more than I expected.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of A capa do livro é bonita, mas o índice me ajudou mais do que eu esperava.
eu
I
ser
to be
o livro
the book
mas
but
Questions & Answers about A capa do livro é bonita, mas o índice me ajudou mais do que eu esperava.
Why is it a capa but o índice?
Because Portuguese nouns have grammatical gender.
- capa is a feminine noun, so it takes a
- índice is a masculine noun, so it takes o
This grammatical gender does not always match any logical idea of male/female. It is just something you learn with the noun.
That is also why the adjective changes in é bonita:
- capa → feminine
- so the adjective becomes bonita, not bonito
What does do livro mean exactly?
do is a contraction of de + o.
- de = of / from
- o = the
- de + o → do
So a capa do livro literally means the cover of the book.
Portuguese uses these contractions very often:
- de + a → da
- de + os → dos
- de + as → das
Why is it bonita and not bonito?