Breakdown of Ela não gosta de discutir temas políticos em público.
Questions & Answers about Ela não gosta de discutir temas políticos em público.
Why is it gosta de discutir and not just gosta discutir?
In Portuguese, the verb gostar almost always needs the preposition de before what you like.
Structure: gostar de + noun / verb (infinitive)
- Ela gosta de chocolate. – She likes chocolate.
- Ela gosta de discutir. – She likes to discuss.
So leaving out de (gosta discutir) is incorrect in standard Portuguese. You must say gostar de + discutir.
Why is the negation não placed before gosta and not somewhere else?
In Portuguese, the normal way to negate a verb is to put não directly before the conjugated verb:
- Ela não gosta… – She does not like…
- Eu não quero… – I do not want…
Putting não anywhere else (Ela gosta não de discutir…) is wrong or, at best, very unusual and marked. So the correct order is:
Ela não gosta de discutir…
Why is it temas políticos and not políticos temas?
In Portuguese, most adjectives come after the noun, unlike English:
- temas políticos – political topics
- livro interessante – interesting book
- filmes franceses – French movies
So temas políticos is the normal word order.
políticos temas sounds wrong or at least very poetic/old-fashioned.
Why is políticos plural? Could I say tema político instead?
Why is temas masculine? How do I know its gender?
In Portuguese, every noun has a gender. Tema is masculine, even though it ends in -a (it’s an exception to the usual pattern).
- o tema / os temas – the topic / the topics (masculine)
- tema político / temas políticos – political topic / political topics
You mainly have to learn the gender with the noun:
o tema, o problema, o sistema, etc. are all masculine despite ending in -a.
The adjective políticos agrees with temas in gender (masculine) and number (plural).
What exactly does discutir mean? Is it more like “discuss” or “argue”?
In European Portuguese, discutir can mean both:
To discuss / talk about something seriously
- discutir um tema na aula – to discuss a topic in class
To argue / quarrel (have a heated argument)
- Eles discutiram ontem. – They argued yesterday.
In your sentence, discutir temas políticos em público usually suggests serious discussion/debate, but depending on context it can also suggest arguments about politics, because those often get heated.
Could I say falar de política instead of discutir temas políticos? Is there a difference?
Yes, you can, but there is a slight nuance:
- discutir temas políticos – to debate/discuss political topics (often more structured or serious, may imply argument)
- falar de política – to talk about politics (more general, can be casual conversation)
For example:
This is perfectly natural and maybe even more common in everyday speech than discutir temas políticos.
Why is it em público and not no público?
Em público is a fixed expression meaning in public / in front of other people.
No público would literally be “in the audience” (em + o = no), referring to the group of people watching a show, speech, etc.:
- Ele está sentado no público. – He is sitting in the audience.
So for the meaning “in public”, always use em público, not no público.
How do you pronounce gosta de and em público in European Portuguese?
Approximate European Portuguese pronunciation (not IPA):
In fast speech, gosta de can sound almost like GOSH-tɨ.
The written accents (público, políticos) show where the stress falls.
What tense is gosta and how is gostar conjugated?
Gosta is 3rd person singular, present tense of gostar.
Present tense of gostar (European Portuguese):
Could I say Ela odeia discutir temas políticos em público instead? Does it sound natural?
Yes, that’s correct and natural.
Ela não gosta de discutir temas políticos em público.
She doesn’t like to discuss political topics in public. (dislike)Ela odeia discutir temas políticos em público.
She hates discussing political topics in public. (stronger feeling)
Odiar = to hate. The structure is the same:
odiar + infinitive → odeia discutir.
Is this sentence formal or informal? Would it sound natural in everyday European Portuguese?
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