Log inSign up

Tu pagas o café com cartão?

Tu pagas o café com cartão?
Do you pay for coffee with a card?
FromLesson 29inHardcore Portuguese (Portugal)
……

Breakdown of Tu pagas o café com cartão?

tu
you
o café
the coffee
com
with
pagar
to pay
o cartão
the card

Questions & Answers about Tu pagas o café com cartão?

Why is tu used instead of você in this sentence?
In European Portuguese, tu is the standard 2nd‐person singular familiar pronoun when speaking with friends, family or people of the same age. Você exists but is more formal or even distant in Portugal. In Brazil, by contrast, você is the default informal “you,” and tu is regional.
Why is the verb pagar conjugated as pagas here?

Because the subject is tu (2nd‐person singular). The present‐tense conjugation of pagar for tu is pagas. If you addressed someone as você, you’d say você paga.

Conjugation chart (present):
• eu pago
• tu pagas
• ele/ela/você paga
• nós pagamos
• vocês pagam
• eles/elas pagam

Why isn’t there an auxiliary verb like “do” at the beginning of the question, and why doesn’t the word order change?
Unlike English, Portuguese forms yes/no questions by intonation alone. You keep the normal Subject-Verb-Object order (tu pagas o café com cartão) and simply raise your pitch at the end. No auxiliary verbs are needed.
Why is there a definite article o before café, instead of saying um café?
When you refer to a specific item you’re about to pay for—“the coffee” you just drank—you use the definite article o. Saying um café (“a coffee”) would sound like you’re ordering one, not paying for something already known.
Why is com used before cartão? Could you say de cartão?
The verb pagar takes com when stating the means of payment: pagar com cartão = “to pay with a card.” You would not say pagar de cartão. If you need to specify, you can say com cartão de crédito or com cartão de débito.
Is Tu pagas o café com cartão? formal or informal?

This is informal, because it uses tu. To be more polite or in a formal setting, you could use:
• Você paga o café com cartão?
• Paga o seu café com cartão, senhor/señhora?

Can you drop the pronoun and just say Pagas o café com cartão??
Yes. Subject pronouns like tu are redundant in Portuguese and often omitted in speech and writing. Pagas o café com cartão? is perfectly natural and even more colloquial.
How do you pronounce cartão, and where do you place the stress?

cartão is pronounced [kɐʁˈtɐ̃w̃].
• The stress is on the second syllable: car-TÃO.
• The “ã” is a nasal vowel, similar to the French “on” in “bonjour.”
• The final “ão” sounds roughly like “ow” in English “town,” but nasalized.

More from this lesson

o descontoo centro comercialHoje, há um grande desconto no centro comercial.aplicadoautomaticamenteo cartãoO desconto foi aplicado automaticamente quando paguei com cartão.anunciar
AI Language TutorTry it ↗
“What's the best way to learn Portuguese grammar?”
Portuguese grammar becomes intuitive with practice. Focus on understanding the core patterns first — how sentences are structured, how verbs change form, and how words relate to each other. Our course breaks these concepts into small lessons so you can build understanding step by step.

Sign up free — start using our AI language tutor

Start learning Portuguese

Master Portuguese — from Tu pagas o café com cartão to fluency

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods.

  • ✓ Infinitely deep — unlimited vocabulary and grammar
  • ✓ Fast-paced — build complex sentences from the start
  • ✓ Unforgettable — efficient spaced repetition system
  • ✓ AI tutor to answer your grammar questions
Start learning Portuguese freeBrowse the full course