Agora, mesmo no táxi, posso acalmar-me respirando profundamente antes de uma reunião difícil.

Now, even in the taxi, I can calm down by breathing deeply before a difficult meeting.

Breakdown of Agora, mesmo no táxi, posso acalmar-me respirando profundamente antes de uma reunião difícil.

• de: of
• agora: now
• em: in
• poder: to be able to
• difícil: difficult
• uma: a
• a reunião: the meeting
• antes: before
• mesmo: even
• respirar: to breathe
• o táxi: the taxi
• profundamente: deeply
• acalmar-se: to calm down

Questions & Answers about Agora, mesmo no táxi, posso acalmar-me respirando profundamente antes de uma reunião difícil.

What does mesmo mean here, and why is it placed before no táxi?

In this sentence, mesmo means “even” (not “same”).

• Agora, mesmo no táxi, ... ≈ “Now, even in the taxi, ...”

It emphasizes that the taxi is a somewhat surprising or unlikely place to do the action (to calm down).

Position:

• In this use, mesmo typically comes before the part it emphasizes:
  • mesmo no trabalho – even at work
  • mesmo em casa – even at home

Other common meanings of mesmo (not the one used here):

• o mesmo táxi – the same taxi
• ele mesmo fez isso – he himself did that

Why is it no táxi and not just em táxi or something else?

No táxi is em + o táxi (in/on the taxi).

In European Portuguese, with most means of transport you usually say:

• ir de táxi – to go by taxi (focus on the means of transport)
• estar no táxi – to be in the taxi (focus on being inside a specific taxi)

Here we want “even in the taxi (I’m in)”, not “by taxi” as a means of transport, so:

• mesmo no táxi = even in the taxi

em táxi is not idiomatic here; it would sound incomplete or strange. Use:

• de táxi → “by taxi”
• no táxi → “in the taxi”

Why is it posso and not consigo? Aren’t both “can”?

Both can translate as “can” or “am able to”, but there’s a nuance:

• posso (from poder) = I am allowed to / I have the possibility to
• consigo (from conseguir) = I manage to / I succeed in / I’m capable of (often with some difficulty)

In this context, posso suggests:

• “Now I have the possibility / I’m now able (in general) to calm myself by breathing deeply…”

If the focus were more on managing despite difficulty, you might hear:

• Agora, mesmo no táxi, consigo acalmar-me...
  → “Now, even in the taxi, I manage to calm myself...”

Both are possible, but posso is a natural neutral choice for “I can (do this now).”

Why is it acalmar-me and not me acalmar?

This is mainly a European Portuguese clitic (pronoun) position rule.

The verb is acalmar-se = “to calm down / to calm oneself.”
The reflexive pronoun is me = “myself.”

In European Portuguese:

• After an infinitive, gerund, or past participle, the pronoun usually attaches to the end with a hyphen:
  • acalmar-me – to calm myself
  • levantar-me – to get myself up
  • vestindo-se – getting dressed (himself/herself)

So after posso we have the infinitive:

• posso acalmar-me (correct in European Portuguese)
• *posso me acalmar sounds Brazilian, not European.

In Brazilian Portuguese:

• posso me acalmar is completely normal.
• posso acalmar-me is also possible but more formal/literary.

Since you’re learning Portuguese from Portugal, acalmar-me (with the pronoun at the end) is the usual pattern here.

Why is there a hyphen in acalmar-me?

In European Portuguese, when clitic pronouns (me, te, se, nos, vos, o, a, etc.) are placed after the verb, they attach with a hyphen:

• acalmar-me – calm myself
• levantar-se – get up (oneself)
• sentar-se – sit down
• dizer-te – say to you

So:

• pronoun before the verb → no hyphen:
  
  • eu me acalmo (BP) / eu acalmo-me (EP) – I calm myself
• pronoun after the verb → with hyphen:
  
  • acalmar-me, acalmo-me, levantar-se, etc.

This is a regular spelling rule, not optional punctuation.

Can I change the position of acalmar-me in the sentence?

You have a bit of flexibility, but in European Portuguese, with a modal verb like posso plus infinitive, the standard is:

• posso acalmar-me (modal + infinitive + clitic attached to infinitive)

You may see in very formal or literary European Portuguese:

• posso-me acalmar – pronoun after the conjugated verb

But in everyday European usage:

• posso acalmar-me is by far the most natural.

In Brazilian Portuguese, you’d commonly see:

• posso me acalmar (pronoun before infinitive, no hyphen)

So for European Portuguese: posso acalmar-me is the best choice.

What exactly is respirando profundamente doing grammatically?

Respirando is the gerúndio (gerund) of respirar = to breathe.
Profundamente = deeply.

So respirando profundamente means:

• “by breathing deeply” / “while breathing deeply”

Function:

• It describes how you calm yourself:
  • posso acalmar-me respirando profundamente
    → “I can calm myself (how?) by breathing deeply.”

In European Portuguese, the gerúndio is often fine in cases like this.
An alternative, slightly more formal and very common in Portugal, is:

• posso acalmar-me ao respirar profundamente
  (literally “on/when breathing deeply”)

Is the gerund (respirando) really used in European Portuguese? I thought it was more Brazilian.

It’s true that:

• In Brazilian Portuguese, the gerund (-ando, -endo, -indo) is extremely common in speech:

  • estou respirando, ficando calmo, etc.

• In European Portuguese, the gerund is:

  • used, but less frequently in everyday speech,
  • often replaced by ao + infinitive or other structures.

In your sentence, both are acceptable in Portugal:

• posso acalmar-me respirando profundamente
• posso acalmar-me ao respirar profundamente

The second version (ao respirar) sounds very natural and slightly more typical in European Portuguese, but the gerund version is not wrong.

Why is it antes de uma reunião difícil and not just antes uma reunião difícil?

In Portuguese, antes almost always needs a preposition after it:

• antes de
  • noun / pronoun:
    • antes de uma reunião – before a meeting
    • antes do jantar – before dinner
• antes de
  • infinitive verb:
    • antes de sair – before leaving

You cannot drop the de here.
So:

• ✅ antes de uma reunião difícil
• ❌ antes uma reunião difícil

Also:

• uma reunião difícil = “a difficult meeting”
  • uma is the feminine singular article (reunião is feminine)
  • difícil is an adjective that has the same form for masculine and feminine in the singular:
    • um dia difícil
    • uma reunião difícil

Could we say antes da reunião difícil instead of antes de uma reunião difícil? What’s the difference?

Yes, grammatically you can say both, but the meaning changes:

• antes de uma reunião difícil
  → before a difficult meeting (any difficult meeting, non-specific)

• antes da reunião difícil
  → before the difficult meeting (a particular one that both speaker and listener know about)

So:

• de uma = introduces a new, non-specific meeting.
• da (de + a) = refers to a specific meeting already identified in the context.

How do you pronounce táxi and reunião, and what do the accents/nasal sign mean?

táxi

• Stress is on the first syllable: TÁ-xi.
• The acute accent on á marks the stressed syllable and an open /a/ sound.
• Rough approximate pronunciation (European): [ˈtak.si].

reunião

• Broken into syllables: reu-ni-ão.
• Stress is on the last syllable: re-u-NHÃO.
• ão is a nasal diphthong, similar to “own” but nasal: [ɐ̃w̃].
• Approximate pronunciation (EP): [ʁe.u.niˈɐ̃w̃].

The diacritic in reunião is a tilde (~) on ã, signaling a nasal vowel and helping mark the stressed syllable.