A melancia tinha muitas sementes, então meu filho comeu só um pouco.

The watermelon had many seeds, so my son ate only a little.

Breakdown of A melancia tinha muitas sementes, então meu filho comeu só um pouco.

• comer: to eat
• ter: to have
• meu: my
• então: so

Questions & Answers about A melancia tinha muitas sementes, então meu filho comeu só um pouco.

Why is it a melancia instead of just melancia?

A melancia uses the definite article a because the speaker is talking about a specific watermelon, not watermelons in general.

• A melancia tinha muitas sementes = The watermelon had a lot of seeds
• Melancia tem muitas sementes would sound more like a general statement: Watermelon has a lot of seeds

So here a helps show that this is one particular watermelon in the situation.

Why is it tinha and not teve?

Tinha is the imperfect form of ter. It is often used for description or background information in the past.

Here, tinha muitas sementes describes the condition of the watermelon: it had many seeds.

Using teve would sound more like a simple completed event, while tinha fits better for setting up the situation that explains what happened next.

So the sentence structure is basically:

• background description: A melancia tinha muitas sementes
• main completed action: meu filho comeu só um pouco

That contrast is very common in Portuguese.

Why is it muitas sementes and not muitos sementes?