Questions & Answers about Eu volto para casa cedo hoje.
Yes. Portuguese is a pro‑drop language, so the subject pronoun is often omitted: Volto para casa cedo hoje is perfectly correct.
Using eu adds emphasis or contrast (for example: Eu volto cedo, eles voltam tarde – I come home early, they come home late), or it can help when context is unclear. In everyday speech, both versions (with or without eu) are common.
In Portuguese, the present indicative is very often used to talk about near future plans, especially when the time is specified, like hoje, amanhã, logo, etc.
So Eu volto para casa cedo hoje can mean I’m coming / I’ll come home early today, even if it’s a bit later, not right now.
You can also say:
- Vou voltar para casa cedo hoje – I’m going to come back home early today
- Voltarei para casa cedo hoje – grammatically fine but sounds more formal or written in European Portuguese.
For everyday speech in Portugal, the simple present with a time expression is very natural.
- voltar = to return / go back / come back to a place you were before.
- Eu volto para casa – I go back home / I return home.
- ir = to go (away from the current point).
- Eu vou para casa – I go home / I’m going home. This doesn’t highlight the idea of “back again” as clearly as voltar.
- vir = to come (towards the place of the speaker or listener).
- If you’re talking to someone who is at home, you could say: Hoje eu vou aí a casa or Hoje eu chego a casa cedo rather than using vir here in European Portuguese; vir para casa is possible but less typical than those options.
In your sentence, volto implies you are returning home (you were there earlier, you left, and you’ll go back).
Para casa (without article) is an idiomatic expression meaning (to) home, focusing more on the idea of home than on a specific building.
- Volto para casa – I go back home.
If you say para a casa, you’re talking about a particular house as a physical place:
- Volto para a casa da minha avó – I go back to my grandmother’s house.
So para casa is the usual way to express to home in a general sense.
With certain very common locations, Portuguese often drops the article in set expressions, especially with casa used as home:
- ir para casa – go home
- chegar a casa – arrive home
- estar em casa – be at home
If you add the article (a casa, à casa, da casa), you usually mean a specific house as a building. Without it, casa feels like the general concept of home rather than just a house.
No, not in this sentence.
- para casa = to home, indicates movement / destination.
- em casa = at home, indicates location (being there, not going there).
Your sentence is about going home, so you need para casa (or a casa). A different sentence with em casa could be:
- Eu estou em casa cedo hoje – I’m at home early today. (This suggests that, for some reason, you happen to be at home unusually early.)
Yes, adverbs like cedo and hoje are quite flexible. These are all possible and natural in European Portuguese, with slightly different rhythms or emphases:
- Eu volto para casa cedo hoje. – neutral, as given.
- Eu volto cedo para casa hoje. – a bit more emphasis on cedo (early).
- Hoje volto para casa cedo. – emphasises hoje (today); common in speech.
- Eu hoje volto para casa cedo. – also common; hoje is highlighted in the middle.
One thing to note: hoje cedo is also a fixed expression meaning earlier today / this morning. So:
- Hoje cedo voltei para casa. – I came back home earlier today (e.g. in the morning).
But in your original sentence, cedo + hoje simply combine as early today.
Cedo mainly means early. In your sentence, it means you will get home earlier than the normal or expected time.
It can also mean too early / soon in expressions like:
- É muito cedo para decidir. – It’s too early to decide.
But in Eu volto para casa cedo hoje, speakers will understand cedo as early (in the day / evening), not simply soon in a vague sense.
You can modify cedo like this:
- Eu volto para casa mais cedo hoje. – I’m coming home earlier today (than usual or than previously planned).
- Eu volto para casa muito cedo hoje. – I’m coming home very early today.
- Eu volto para casa bem cedo hoje. – also very early; bem here intensifies cedo in European Portuguese speech.
All of these are natural in Portugal.
No. With voltar and a place, you normally need a preposition:
- voltar para casa
- voltar a casa
Both para and a are used in Portugal. You cannot say voltar casa without a preposition.
So the bare Eu volto casa cedo hoje is incorrect; you must keep para (or a).
They are very close in meaning, and both are used.
- voltar para casa – very common in everyday speech; slightly more focus on the destination (going in the direction of home).
- voltar a casa – also common, sometimes felt as a bit more neutral or slightly more formal/literary in some contexts, but not by much.
In most everyday situations in Portugal, you can use either without changing the meaning significantly.
Approximate (very rough) pronunciation in European Portuguese:
- Eu – like “eh-oo” blended: [eu]
- volto – [ˈvɔɫ.tu] (the l is dark, a bit like English “vol” in volt but with a dark l)
- para – often reduced in fast speech to [pɾɐ] (sounds like “pruh”)
- casa – [ˈka.zɐ] (final a is a reduced sound, not a full “ah”)
- cedo – [ˈse.du]
- hoje – [ˈo.ʒɨ] (the j is like the s in measure, and the last vowel is a reduced sound, not like English “ee” or “eh”).
Spoken smoothly, it might sound like: [eu ˈvɔɫ.tu ˈpɾɐ ˈka.zɐ ˈse.du ˈo.ʒɨ].