Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O namorado da Ana fala francês com a família e português com os amigos. - Ana's boyfriend speaks French with his family and Portuguese with his friends.

Portuguese normally uses the definite article (o, a, os, as) with specific, countable nouns when they are subjects, even where English wouldn’t use the.

O namorado da Ana = literally the boyfriend of Ana → Ana’s boyfriend
Without the article (Namorado da Ana) it sounds like a headline, note, or very telegraphic style, not a normal sentence.

So in a normal sentence, you say O namorado da Ana.

Why is it da Ana and not de Ana?

Da is a contraction of de + a:

de (of) + a (the, feminine) → da

In European Portuguese, people’s names very often take a definite article in speech:

a Ana, o João, a Maria

So underneath da Ana you can imagine de a Ana → da Ana.

You can see de Ana in more formal or careful writing (treating the name without an article), but da Ana is extremely common and completely natural in European Portuguese.

Why is the verb fala (3rd person singular) and not something like falam, since família and amigos are plural ideas?

The subject of the sentence is O namorado da Ana – that is one person, so the verb must be 3rd person singular:

O namorado da Ana fala … ✅
O namorado da Ana falam … ❌

Família and amigos are part of the prepositional phrases com a família and com os amigos. They are not the subject; they are the people he speaks with. The verb always agrees with the subject (o namorado), not with those objects of the preposition.

Why isn’t there a possessive like her or his in com a família and com os amigos?

Portuguese often drops possessive words where English needs them, especially with close relationships (family, body parts, clothes, etc.), if context makes ownership clear.

com a família can mean with his/her family
com os amigos can mean with his/her friends

If you need to be explicit, Portuguese normally uses dele (of him / his) and dela (of her / her):

com a família dele – with his family
com a família dela – with her family
com os amigos dele / dela – with his/her friends

In your sentence, the possessive is simply understood from context and left out.

Whose family and friends are these – Ana’s or the boyfriend’s?

As the sentence stands, it is ambiguous; both readings are possible:

Ana’s boyfriend speaks French with Ana’s family and Portuguese with Ana’s boyfriend’s friends, or
Ana’s boyfriend speaks French with his own family and Portuguese with his own friends, etc.

To make it clear, you can specify:

O namorado da Ana fala francês com a família dela e português com os amigos dele.
→ Ana’s boyfriend speaks French with her family and Portuguese with his friends.
O namorado da Ana fala francês com a família dele e português com os amigos dela.
→ Ana’s boyfriend speaks French with his family and Portuguese with her friends.

Without dele/dela, the sentence relies on context to decide whose family/friends we mean.

Why is família singular in Portuguese when it refers to a group of people?

Família is a collective noun in Portuguese:

Grammatically: singular feminine (takes singular verb, singular adjectives)
Meaning: a group of people (the family)

If it were the subject, you’d say:

A família fala francês. – The family speaks French.

But in your sentence, a família is only inside the phrase com a família; the subject is still O namorado da Ana, so the verb form remains fala.

Why do we need the articles a and os in com a família and com os amigos? In English we often say “with family / with friends” without the.

Portuguese uses the definite article much more than English, especially with nouns referring to people and specific groups.

com a família ≈ with the family → understood as his/her/their family
com família is either odd or means something like “with (some) family / with a family” in a very abstract way.

Similarly:

com os amigos ≈ with (the) friends → usually “with his/her close friends”
com amigos would mean “with (some) friends”, non‑specific or generic.

So com a família / com os amigos is the normal, idiomatic way to say “with (the) family / with (the) friends” in this specific context.

Why is there no article before francês and português? I sometimes see o português.

With language names, the article usage depends on the verb and the structure.

After verbs like falar, saber, aprender, estudar, it is very common (and often taught) to omit the article:
- Ela fala francês. – She speaks French.
- Estou a aprender português. – I’m learning Portuguese.
When the language is subject or a more independent noun phrase, you usually use the article:
- O português é uma língua românica. – Portuguese is a Romance language.
- Gosto do português europeu. – I like European Portuguese.

In European Portuguese you may hear falar o francês, but for learners falar + [language] without article is a safe, standard pattern.

Why are francês and português not capitalized?

In Portuguese, names of languages and adjectives of nationality are written with lowercase:

português, francês, inglês, alemão

By contrast, country names and other proper nouns take capital letters:

Portugal, França, Inglaterra, Alemanha

So fala francês and fala português are correctly written with lowercase language names.

Can I say something like fala com a família francês e com os amigos português instead?

No – that word order is not natural in Portuguese.

Here, the languages function as direct objects of falar, so the normal pattern is:

falar + [language] + com + [people]

Hence:

fala francês com a família
fala português com os amigos

A common alternate structure is:

falar com + [people] + em + [language]
- Fala com a família em francês e com os amigos em português.

But you don’t normally insert the language after com a família in the way you suggested.

What is the difference between falar francês com a família and falar em francês com a família?

Both are correct and mean essentially the same thing: to speak French with the family.

Subtle nuance:

falar francês com a família – the simple, very common pattern.
falar em francês com a família – slightly more explicit about the medium (“to speak in French”), often used if you want to emphasize the language choice or contrast it with another language.

In everyday speech, you will hear both; you can treat them as interchangeable for most purposes.

Why do we use com here and not a or para (e.g. falar a/para a família)?

The most neutral way to say “talk/speak to someone” in Portuguese is:

falar com alguém – to talk/speak with someone

It implies a two‑way interaction, just like English talk with / talk to.

You can find falar para alguém or falar a alguém, but they often sound more like:

speaking towards someone (one‑way, like giving a talk, scolding, making an announcement), or
are used in certain fixed expressions / regional styles.

In your sentence, com is the natural, default preposition.

What is the difference between namorado and amigo in this sentence?

They refer to different kinds of relationships:

namorado – boyfriend, a romantic partner in an ongoing relationship.
- feminine: namorada (girlfriend)
- plural: namorados / namoradas
amigo – friend, not necessarily romantic.
- feminine: amiga
- plural: amigos / amigas

So O namorado da Ana is Ana’s boyfriend, and os amigos are simply (his/her) friends.

How could I say the sentence more explicitly as “Ana’s boyfriend speaks French with her family and Portuguese with his friends”?

You can make both possessors explicit:

O namorado da Ana fala francês com a família dela e português com os amigos dele.

Breakdown:

O namorado da Ana – Ana’s boyfriend
fala francês – speaks French
com a família dela – with her family
e português – and Portuguese
com os amigos dele – with his friends

Using dela and dele removes the ambiguity about whose family and whose friends are being talked about.