Word
A conta de luz está na mesa.
Meaning
The electricity bill is on the table.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Breakdown of A conta de luz está na mesa.
a mesa
the table
estar
to be
na
on the
a conta de luz
the electricity bill
Questions & Answers about A conta de luz está na mesa.
Why does conta de luz mean electricity bill? Doesn’t it literally look like account of light?
Yes, literally conta can mean account or bill, and luz means light. But in everyday Brazilian Portuguese, conta de luz is the normal way to say electricity bill.
This is just a fixed real-world expression:
- conta de luz = electricity bill
- conta de água = water bill
- conta de telefone = phone bill
So even though the literal words may seem odd in English, the phrase is completely natural in Portuguese.
Why is it A conta and not just conta?
Portuguese uses articles much more often than English does. So where English might say The bill is on the table, Portuguese naturally says A conta está na mesa.
Here a means the and agrees with conta, which is feminine:
- a conta
- a mesa
Leaving out the article would usually sound unnatural in this sentence.
Why is it de luz and not da luz?