Breakdown of Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor, porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
Questions & Answers about Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor, porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
In European Portuguese it’s very common to drop subject pronouns like eu when the verb ending already makes the subject clear.
- reduzo can only be I reduce
- durmo can only be I sleep
Because the person is obvious from the verb form, you normally don’t need eu. The sentence with pronouns would be:
- Quando eu reduzo o brilho, eu durmo melhor, porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
That’s grammatically correct, just more emphatic or contrastive (for example: “When *I reduce the brightness, I sleep better…”). In everyday speech and writing, the shorter version without *eu is more natural.
Both verbs are in the present indicative, first person singular:
- reduzo → from reduzir (to reduce), eu reduzo
- durmo → from dormir (to sleep), eu durmo
This present tense in Portuguese is used both for:
- general, repeated actions: Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor.
(Whenever I reduce the brightness, I sleep better.) - and actions happening now (in other contexts): Agora reduzo o brilho.
(I’m reducing the brightness now.)
Both reduzir and dormir are slightly irregular; their first-person forms are not just reduzir → reduzir or dormir → dormir, but reduzo, durmo.
You can say Quando eu reduzo o brilho; it’s perfectly correct. The difference is subtle:
- Quando reduzo o brilho…
→ neutral, normal way to say it, subject understood as “I”. - Quando eu reduzo o brilho…
→ adds slight emphasis to eu. It can imply contrast (e.g. When *I reduce the brightness*, as opposed to someone else), or just sound a bit more “spelled out”.
In most neutral statements, European Portuguese prefers to drop eu when the verb ending already tells you the person.
In Portuguese, after quando you often use the present indicative to talk about:
- general truths
- habits
- repeated situations
So:
- Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor
literally: When I reduce the brightness, I sleep better
meaning: Whenever I do that, I sleep better (habitual action).
You can use the future subjunctive in other contexts:
- Quando reduzir o brilho, vai dormir melhor.
(When you reduce the brightness, you will sleep better. – a specific future situation, often with “you”.)
In your sentence, we are talking about a general habit, so present indicative (reduzo, durmo) is the most natural choice.
Here reduzir o brilho means to lower the brightness (on a screen, for example).
You could also say:
- baixar o brilho
- diminuir o brilho
All three are correct. Subtle differences in feel:
- reduzir o brilho → a bit more neutral/formal, common in written instructions.
- baixar o brilho → very common in everyday speech, very natural.
- diminuir o brilho → also common, sounds slightly more descriptive (to make it less).
So you could say, for example:
- Quando baixo o brilho, durmo melhor.
- Quando diminuo o brilho, durmo melhor.
All mean essentially the same in this context.
Portuguese nouns have grammatical gender:
- o brilho – masculine (the brightness)
- a luz – feminine (the light)
The article (o, a) must match the noun’s gender and number:
- o brilho, os brilhos
- a luz, as luzes
About leaving articles out: in Portuguese, when you talk about things in general, you usually keep the definite article:
- A luz azul incomoda menos.
→ Blue light bothers you less (in general). - Gosto do café.
→ I like coffee (in general).
If you remove them:
- Quando reduzo brilho, durmo melhor, porque luz azul incomoda menos.
this sounds wrong or at least very unnatural in European Portuguese. So here, the articles o and a are necessary.
In Portuguese, adjectives normally come after the noun:
- luz azul – literally light blue → “blue light”
- carro vermelho – car red → “red car”
- casa pequena – house small → “small house”
So luz azul follows the usual pattern: noun + adjective.
Reversing it – azul luz – is incorrect in standard Portuguese. There are some special cases where adjectives precede nouns, but with colors like azul, they nearly always come after the noun.
Melhor is the comparative form of both:
- bom (good)
- bem (well)
In this sentence we’re talking about how I sleep (the manner), so we compare bem:
- durmo bem → I sleep well
- durmo melhor → I sleep better
You do not say durmo bom in Portuguese. For comparisons, melhor is almost always used instead of mais bem:
- durmo melhor (very natural)
- durmo mais bem (grammatically possible, but sounds strange here)
So durmo melhor is the standard, idiomatic form.
The commas mark clause boundaries:
- Quando reduzo o brilho,
→ dependent clause (time: “when I reduce the brightness”) - durmo melhor,
→ main clause - porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
→ subordinate clause of cause (“because blue light bothers less”)
The comma after the initial Quando… clause is standard, because that clause comes before the main clause. If you switch the order, no comma is needed:
- Durmo melhor quando reduzo o brilho, porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
The comma before porque is often used in writing to make the sentence clearer, but in short sentences you can leave it out:
- Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
All of these are acceptable, but the original punctuation is clear and natural.
In your sentence we use porque (one word, no accent):
- … porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
→ “because”: it introduces a reason.
Main distinctions:
porque
- meaning: because or sometimes that (in explanations)
- use: answers / gives reasons
- example: Durmo melhor porque reduzo o brilho.
por que
- meaning: why or for what (reason)
- use: questions (direct or indirect)
- example: Por que dormes melhor? (Why do you sleep better?)
porquê
- meaning: the reason, the why
- use: noun (usually with an article)
- example: Não entendo o porquê. (I don’t understand the reason.)
por quê
- meaning: why
- use: in questions, but at the end of the sentence
- example: Dormes melhor, por quê? (mostly Brazilian usage; in Portugal people more often say Porquê dormes melhor? or Dormes melhor porquê?)
In your sentence, you’re giving a reason, so porque is the correct form.
Incomodar means to bother, to disturb, to annoy, or to cause discomfort.
In your sentence:
- a luz azul incomoda menos
literally: blue light bothers less / is less bothersome.
There is no explicit indirect object (me, te, nos, etc.), so it’s a general statement:
- a luz azul incomoda menos
→ Blue light is less disturbing (in general, to people).
If you want to make it personal, you can add a pronoun:
- … porque a luz azul me incomoda menos.
→ because blue light bothers me less.
Both are correct; they just express slightly different focus:
- without me: general truth
- with me: how you personally feel
Yes, you can reorder the clauses, and it’s still correct:
- Durmo melhor quando reduzo o brilho, porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
Meaning and nuance remain the same. Portuguese word order is fairly flexible with clause-level elements, as long as you keep each clause’s internal structure intact.
A few natural variants:
- Durmo melhor quando reduzo o brilho porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
- Quando reduzo o brilho, durmo melhor porque a luz azul incomoda menos.
The main constraints:
- Keep quando with its clause (quando reduzo o brilho).
- Keep porque with its cause clause (porque a luz azul incomoda menos).
Within those limits, moving the time clause to the front or keeping it after the main clause is fine.
Menos means less.
In a luz azul incomoda menos, it modifies the verb incomoda:
- incomoda – bothers
- incomoda menos – bothers less
The usual position is after the verb in this kind of structure. You would not normally move menos in front of incomoda:
- ✗ a luz azul menos incomoda (sounds wrong here)
You might occasionally see menos before an adjective or a noun in other contexts:
- menos luz azul – less blue light
- menos incômodo – less discomfort
But in your sentence, the most natural (and pretty much the only good) option is:
- … a luz azul incomoda menos.