A cozinha cheira a sopa quente.

The kitchen smells of hot soup.

Breakdown of A cozinha cheira a sopa quente.

• a cozinha: the kitchen
• a sopa: the soup
• quente: hot
• cheirar a: to smell

Questions & Answers about A cozinha cheira a sopa quente.

Why does the sentence start with A cozinha and not just Cozinha?

In European Portuguese, you normally use the definite article (o, a, os, as) with nouns when you talk about specific things, including rooms in a house.

• A cozinha = the kitchen (a specific kitchen, usually “the one in this house/flat”).
• Just cozinha on its own is rare as a subject; it sounds more like a label or a heading than a normal sentence.

Compare:

• A cozinha é grande. – The kitchen is big. (normal)
• Cozinha: é grande. – could appear as a note or title, but not as natural everyday speech.

So A cozinha cheira a sopa quente is the normal, natural way to say this. Removing A would sound incomplete or non‑idiomatic in most contexts.

What exactly does the verb cheirar mean here?

Cheirar has two main uses:

1. To have a smell / to smell (give off an odor) – what we have in your sentence

   • A cozinha cheira a sopa quente. – The kitchen smells of hot soup.

2. To smell/sniff something on purpose (using your nose actively)

   • Estou a cheirar a sopa. – I am smelling/sniffing the soup.

So in your sentence, cheira is “gives off a smell / has the smell of”, not “is sniffing”.

Why do we say cheira a and not something like cheira como or cheira de?

With the meaning “to smell of / to smell like (have the odor of)”, Portuguese almost always uses cheirar a + noun:

• cheirar a sopa
• cheirar a fumo
• cheirar a flores
• cheirar a queimado

You do not say:

• ✗ cheirar como sopa
• ✗ cheirar de sopa

Other common patterns with cheirar:

• cheirar bem / cheirar mal – to smell good / bad (no preposition)
  
  • A cozinha cheira bem.
• cheirar algo – to smell/sniff something actively
  
  • Ele cheirou a sopa (he sniffed the soup, here a is just the direct object marker used with people/things sometimes, not “smells of”).

In your sentence, we want “to smell of”, so the correct pattern is cheirar a + coisa.

Could we say A cozinha cheira à sopa quente instead of a sopa quente? What is the difference?

Grammatically you can say à sopa quente (which is a + a → à), but it changes the nuance slightly.

• cheira a sopa quente – smells of hot soup in general; we’re just talking about the type of smell.
• cheira à sopa quente – tends to sound more like smells of the hot soup, i.e. a specific soup that we both know about, or that is right there.

In everyday speech, cheira a sopa quente is very natural and probably more common if you just mean “smells of hot soup” without pointing to a particular soup.

Can we drop the preposition and say A cozinha cheira sopa quente?

Normally, no. That sounds wrong for the meaning you want.

Without a, cheirar tends to mean “to smell/sniff (something)”, an active action:

• Ele cheira a sopa. – He smells/sniffs the soup.
• Ele cheira sopa. – also interpreted as He smells/sniffs soup (slightly odd wording, but active).

To express that the kitchen itself has that odor, you need cheirar a + noun:

• A cozinha cheira a sopa quente. – The kitchen smells of hot soup.

So for “has the smell of”, keep the a.

Why is it sopa quente and not quente sopa like English “hot soup”?

In Portuguese, most adjectives normally come after the noun:

• uma sopa quente – a hot soup
• uma casa grande – a big house
• um livro interessante – an interesting book

Putting quente before sopa (quente sopa) would sound wrong in normal speech.

There are some adjectives that can go before the noun (often with a meaning or emphasis change), but quente is not normally used before the noun. So sopa quente is the natural order.

Does quente change with gender or number? Why isn’t it quenta?

Quente is one of the adjectives that has:

• the same form for masculine and feminine, and
• a different form only in the plural.

Forms of quente:

• singular: quente (masc. & fem.)
• plural: quentes (masc. & fem.)

Examples:

• sopa quente – hot soup (feminine singular)
• chá quente – hot tea (masculine singular)
• sopas quentes – hot soups (feminine plural)
• chás quentes – hot teas (masculine plural)

There is no form quenta in standard Portuguese.

How do we know that cozinha and sopa are feminine?

You mainly learn noun gender by vocabulary exposure, but there are some patterns:

• Nouns ending in -a are very often feminine:
  
  • a cozinha, a sopa, a casa, a porta
    (though there are exceptions like o dia, o mapa).

You can see the gender also in the article and any agreeing words:

• a cozinha – a (feminine singular definite article)
• a sopa quente – a (feminine singular), quente (same M/F form)

So in this sentence:

• A cozinha → feminine singular
• a sopa quente → feminine singular

Is there a difference between A cozinha cheira a sopa quente and Há cheiro de sopa quente na cozinha?

Both are correct and natural, but they focus on the idea in slightly different ways.

1. A cozinha cheira a sopa quente.

   • The subject is a cozinha (the kitchen).
   • The verb cheira describes a state of the kitchen: it “smells of hot soup”.
   • Very direct, everyday way to say this.

2. Há cheiro de sopa quente na cozinha.

   • Literally: “There is a smell of hot soup in the kitchen.”
   • The focus is on cheiro (the smell) existing in the kitchen.
   • Slightly more descriptive, a bit less “everyday speech” than the first, but still very normal.

In practice, in casual conversation, A cozinha cheira a sopa quente is probably more common.

Could we say A cozinha está a cheirar a sopa quente? Is that wrong?

It’s grammatically correct, but it sounds a bit odd or overly literal in most contexts.

• A cozinha cheira a sopa quente.
  → Describes a state: the kitchen smells of hot soup.

• A cozinha está a cheirar a sopa quente.
  → Sounds more like a temporary ongoing action, as if the kitchen is “currently in the process of smelling”. This is not usually how we talk about smells that a place has; we normally treat them as states, not actions.

You might see estar a cheirar when the subject is something actively producing a new smell in a noticeable way:

• O leite está a cheirar mal. – The milk is starting to smell bad / is (now) smelling bad.

For your sentence, A cozinha cheira a sopa quente is the natural choice.

How is A cozinha cheira a sopa quente pronounced in European Portuguese?

In a fairly careful European Portuguese pronunciation, it would be roughly:

• A cozinha cheira a sopa quente
  IPA: [ɐ kuˈziɲɐ ˈʃejɾɐ ɐ ˈsopɐ ˈkẽt(ɨ)]

Some key points:

• A → [ɐ], a very short, almost neutral vowel.
• cozinha → [kuˈziɲɐ]
  
  • z like English z.
  • nh = [ɲ], like the ny in canyon.
• cheira → [ˈʃejɾɐ]
  
  • ch = [ʃ], like English sh in she.
  • ei = [ej], similar to the vowel in English say.
• a (before sopa) → [ɐ], again very short.
• sopa → [ˈsopɐ], both vowels like a short “aw/uh”.
• quente → [ˈkẽt(ɨ)]
  
  • qu before e = [k].
  • en is nasalized [ẽ].
  • Final e is often a very weak [ɨ] or almost not pronounced.

In fast, casual speech, the vowels, especially final ones, may be even shorter or reduced.

Does A cozinha cheira a sopa quente sound natural in European Portuguese, or is there a more typical way to say it?

It sounds completely natural and idiomatic in European Portuguese.

You might also hear small variations like:

• A cozinha cheira a sopa. (leaving out quente, if temperature is not important)
• Cheira a sopa quente na cozinha. (same words, slightly different focus and rhythm)

But as is, A cozinha cheira a sopa quente is exactly the kind of sentence a native speaker would say.