Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): A Ana começou terapia e também faz meditação todos os dias. - Ana started therapy and also does meditation every day.

In Portugal, using o / a before first names is standard in everyday speech, especially when talking about someone:
- A Ana começou terapia. – “Ana started therapy.”
In Brazil, this is much less common; you normally say just Ana, João, etc.
You don’t use the article when you directly address someone (vocative):
- Ana, vem cá. – “Ana, come here.”

So A Ana is just how people naturally say “Ana” in a lot of contexts in European Portuguese; it doesn’t change the basic meaning.

Why is there no article before terapia and meditação? Why not a terapia, a meditação?

Here terapia and meditação are being used in a general / abstract sense, like types of activity:

começou terapia ≈ “started therapy (as an activity / treatment in general)”
faz meditação ≈ “does/does meditation, meditates”

In that general sense, Portuguese often omits the article, similar to English where you say:

“She started therapy.” (not usually “the therapy”)
“He does meditation every day.” (not “the meditation”)

You do use the article when you mean a specific therapy or meditation:

Começou a terapia que o médico recomendou.
“She started the therapy that the doctor recommended.”
Faz a meditação do vídeo que eu lhe mandei.
“She does the meditation from the video I sent her.”

So, without the article: general activity.
With the article: a specific, identified instance/program/type.

Is começou terapia correct, or should it be começou a terapia or começou a fazer terapia?

All three can be correct, but they sound slightly different:

Começou terapia
- Short, colloquial, very natural in speech.
- Think “She started therapy” (the activity in general).
- The object is the noun terapia itself.
Começou a terapia
- Grammatically fine, sounds a bit more like a specific therapy/course:
  - Começou a terapia ontem. – “She started the therapy yesterday.”
- A bit more “specific-program” than “activity in general”.
Começou a fazer terapia
- Literally “started to do therapy”.
- Very common and transparent: verb começar
  - a
    - infinitive.
- Focuses on the ongoing practice she has begun.

In casual European Portuguese, começou terapia and começou a fazer terapia are both very natural. Começou a terapia you’d more often hear when talking about a particular, defined treatment process.

Why is começou (past) used for therapy but faz (present) for meditation? Aren’t the tenses mixed?

The tenses match the natural meaning:

começou terapia – pretérito perfeito (simple past): she started therapy at some point before now. The starting point is in the past.
faz meditação todos os dias – presente do indicativo (present): she does meditation every day now, as a habitual action.

So the sentence means:

At some time in the past, Ana started therapy,
and she (now) also has the habit of meditating every day.

Portuguese often combines a past action that began something (começou) with a present to describe a current habit or ongoing situation (faz meditação todos os dias).

If you wanted both actions clearly in a finished past time frame, you could say:

A Ana começou terapia e também fazia meditação todos os dias.
“Ana started therapy and also used to meditate every day.”

That puts both into a past context (no longer necessarily true now).

Why is it faz meditação and not simply medita?

Both are correct; they’re just slightly different ways of expressing the same idea:

faz meditação
- Literally “does meditation”.
- Uses fazer as a “light verb” with a noun of activity.
- Very natural and common:
  - faz yoga, faz ginástica, faz terapia, faz meditação.
- Neutral, everyday style.
medita
- Uses the verb meditar directly: “she meditates”.
- Slightly more “direct” or a bit more formal/literary in some contexts, but still very common and correct:
  - A Ana medita todos os dias.

You would not normally say faz meditações in this context. The activity is treated as a mass / uncountable practice, like English “does meditation”, not “does meditations”.

Other natural options:

A Ana pratica meditação todos os dias. – “Ana practices meditation every day.”
A Ana medita todos os dias. – “Ana meditates every day.”

All are fine; faz meditação is just a common everyday choice.

Why is também placed before faz (…e também faz meditação)? Can it go somewhere else?

In Portuguese, também usually comes before the main verb it relates to:

…e também faz meditação… – “…and she also does meditation…”

Here, também is adding a second activity (meditation) to the first one (therapy): she started therapy, and in addition she meditates.

Other possible positions, with slightly different focus:

A Ana também começou terapia e faz meditação todos os dias.
- Focus: Ana is “also” someone who started therapy (maybe other people did too).
A Ana começou terapia e faz também meditação todos os dias.
- Closer to: she does (something else) every day and also does meditation.
Também a Ana começou terapia…
- More literary/marked; not the default.

In the original:

começou terapia e também faz meditação = in addition to therapy, she (also) meditates.

That’s why também is right before faz here.

Why is it todos os dias and not todo dia or todos dia?

The expression todos os dias literally means “all the days / every day”:

todos – masculine plural of todo (“all, every”)
os – masculine plural definite article (“the”)
dias – masculine plural noun (“days”)

They all have to agree in gender and number:

masculine plural: todos os dias ✔
todo dia, todos dia, todo os dias ❌ (wrong in standard European Portuguese)

Important contrast:

todos os dias – “every day” (frequency)
todo o dia – “all day (long)” (duration)
- Faz meditação todo o dia. – She meditates all day long. (continuous)
- Faz meditação todos os dias. – She meditates every day. (repeated habit)

Other ways to say “every day”:

diariamente – “daily”
todos os dias de manhã – every morning
cada dia – each day (more emphatic / literary)

Could we say A Ana começou a terapia e também faz meditação todos os dias instead? Does it change the meaning?

You can, and it’s still correct. The nuance is:

começou terapia
- A bit more generic: she began “therapy” as an activity or treatment in general.
começou a terapia
- Highlights a specific therapy program or course. It sounds slightly more like “started the therapy” in English.

So:

A Ana começou terapia e também faz meditação todos os dias.
– She began (doing) therapy in general and she also meditates every day.
A Ana começou a terapia e também faz meditação todos os dias.
– She began the therapy (a particular therapy she had scheduled) and she also meditates every day.

Both can be used in normal conversation; context decides whether the therapy is seen as general or specific.

Why use faz meditação (simple present) and not está a fazer meditação (present continuous) when we say “does meditation every day”?

Portuguese uses the simple present much more broadly than English:

faz meditação todos os dias
- natural way to express a habit / routine
- covers what English expresses with simple present or present continuous depending on context.

European Portuguese does have a present continuous:

está a fazer meditação todos os dias

But that usually suggests:

A temporary phase or new routine:
- “Right now (these days), she is doing meditation every day.”
Some extra emphasis on the ongoing process.

By contrast:

faz meditação todos os dias = plain statement of a habit (default form)
está a fazer meditação todos os dias = she’s currently in a period where she’s doing that; could be understood as more temporary or highlighted.

Is e também redundant? Could we say just e faz meditação or only também faz meditação?

You can vary it, but there are small differences in emphasis:

…começou terapia e também faz meditação todos os dias.
- Neutral, very natural.
- Highlights that meditation is in addition to therapy.
…começou terapia e faz meditação todos os dias.
- Also correct.
- Slightly less explicit about the “also”, but context still suggests it.
A Ana também faz meditação todos os dias.
- On its own, means “Ana also meditates every day” (relative to some previous information, e.g. someone else meditates, or she also does some other practice).
- If you drop e and attach it directly to faz meditação, you’re just putting “also” on that verb phrase.

So e também is not a mistake or real redundancy; it’s a very normal way of linking two related statements and making the “also” very clear.