Breakdown of Quando faz frio, eu bebo chá.
Questions & Answers about Quando faz frio, eu bebo chá.
In Portuguese, we normally use fazer to talk about weather conditions:
- faz calor
- faz vento
- faz sol
- faz frio
Saying está frio isn’t ungrammatical, but it’s less common for general weather reports. More often está frio describes how something (or someone) feels cold at a given moment. The idiomatic, everyday way to talk about the weather being cold is fazer frio.
No, they serve different functions:
- ter frio = “to feel cold” (focus on the person experiencing the cold)
- fazer frio = “it is cold” (describes the weather itself)
For example:
- Tenho frio → “I feel cold.”
- Faz frio → “It’s cold (outside).”
Portuguese is a pro‑drop language: the verb ending -o in bebo already tells you the subject is “I.” The pronoun eu is therefore optional. It’s included here only for emphasis or clarity. You could perfectly say:
Quando faz frio, bebo chá.
When a subordinate clause (“quando faz frio”) comes before the main clause (“eu bebo chá”), Portuguese punctuation calls for a comma. If you reverse the order—
Eu bebo chá quando faz frio
—you no longer need the comma (though you could add it for a slight pause).
Here chá is a mass/general noun, so no article is used when speaking habitually or generally:
- Bebo chá → “I drink tea.” (in general)
If you wanted to mention a specific cup:
- Bebo um chá → “I drink a (cup of) tea.”
- Bebo o chá → “I drink the tea (we were talking about).”
European Portuguese uses the simple present to express habits or general truths. There is a present‐continuous form (estar a + infinitive), but that emphasizes an action happening right now:
- Agora estou a beber chá. → “I’m drinking tea right now.”
For habitual routines, stick with the simple present: bebo chá.
No—without quando you lose the temporal connector “when.” You could join them with e (and):
- Faz frio e eu bebo chá. (“It’s cold and I drink tea.”)
But to express “whenever it’s cold, I drink tea,” you need quando.