Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O Pedro prepara um chá de hortelã quente para acalmar a garganta. - Pedro prepares a hot mint tea to soothe his throat.

In European Portuguese, both Pedro and o Pedro are correct. The version with the article is very frequent in everyday speech.
In Brazilian Portuguese, using the article before names is much less common and can sometimes sound odd or very regional.

So O Pedro prepara… is perfectly normal in Portugal and simply means “Pedro prepares…”.

What is the tense and person of prepara, and what would be the “continuous” form?

Prepara is:

Present tense (presente do indicativo)
3rd person singular
From the verb preparar (“to prepare”)

So (Ele) prepara means “He prepares” or “He is preparing”, depending on context. The Portuguese present can cover both the English simple present and present continuous.

If you want to emphasize that it’s happening right now in European Portuguese, you usually use:

O Pedro está a preparar um chá… = “Pedro is preparing a tea…”

Note:

European Portuguese: estar a + infinitive → está a preparar
Brazilian Portuguese: estar + gerúndio → está preparando

The sentence O Pedro prepara um chá… can describe a current action in a narrative or a habitual action.

Could we use faz instead of prepara here? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

O Pedro faz um chá de hortelã quente…

Both fazer and preparar work, but there are nuances:

fazer = “to make, to do”; very general and very common in everyday speech
- fazer um chá ≈ “make a tea”
preparar = “to prepare”; sounds a bit more careful, sometimes slightly more formal or descriptive
- preparar um chá suggests a bit more deliberate action (getting everything ready, maybe more attention to the process)

In everyday conversation in Portugal, people very often say fazer um chá, but preparar um chá is also perfectly natural and maybe a bit more “textbook” or descriptive.

Why do we say um chá and not o chá or just chá with no article?

Portuguese normally likes articles much more than English does.

um chá = “a (cup/pot of) tea” – indefinite, introducing it as just “some tea” or “a tea” he is going to make now.
o chá = “the tea” – definite, referring to a specific tea already known in the context.

Here we’re introducing the tea as something he is about to make, so um chá is natural.

Leaving the article out (prepara chá) is generally not natural in this context in Portuguese; you normally need um or o.

Why is the adjective quente at the end: um chá de hortelã quente? Can I say um chá quente de hortelã?

Both orders are possible, but they are not quite the same in focus.

um chá de hortelã quente
- Literally: “a tea of mint hot”
- Interpreted as: “a hot mint tea”
- The structure is: chá (de hortelã) quente
  - de hortelã describes the type of tea
  - quente describes the temperature of the tea
um chá quente de hortelã
- Also understandable as “a hot mint tea”, but the grouping is slightly different:
- chá quente (de hortelã) – first we qualify the tea as hot, then say of mint.

In practice, for this meaning, both are acceptable and people will understand the same thing. Many speakers might slightly prefer:

um chá de hortelã quente

because chá de X is a very fixed pattern, and adjectives like quente often come after the full noun phrase.

Why do we use de in chá de hortelã, and not com hortelã?

In Portuguese, when you name a type or flavor of something (tea, juice, soup, cake, etc.), you typically use de:

chá de hortelã = mint tea
bolo de chocolate = chocolate cake
sumo de laranja = orange juice
sopa de legumes = vegetable soup

Here de has a “made of / flavoured with” sense.

com (“with”) is more literal, focusing on the presence of ingredients, often as separate elements:

chá com hortelã = tea with mint (might sound more like: plain tea plus some mint added)
iogurte com fruta = yogurt with fruit pieces in it

So for naming the standard drink type, chá de hortelã is the usual, idiomatic choice.

What gender is hortelã, and does quente agree with chá or hortelã?

chá is masculine: o chá
hortelã is feminine: a hortelã
quente is an adjective that has the same form for masculine and feminine in the singular (quente / quente).

In um chá de hortelã quente, quente is agreeing with chá, not with hortelã. Structurally:

[um chá de hortelã] quente

So quente is describing the tea (it’s the tea that is hot), not the mint.

Because quente doesn’t change form between masculine and feminine in the singular, you don’t see the agreement visibly, but grammatically it’s linked to chá.

What exactly does hortelã mean? Is it the same as “mint” or “peppermint”?

In everyday European Portuguese:

hortelã is a general word for mint (the herb in general).

It can cover several kinds of mint. If people want to be more specific, they can say:

hortelã-pimenta = peppermint
hortelã-da-ribeira or other specific varieties

But in normal conversation, chá de hortelã is just mint tea (the common herbal tea made from mint leaves).

Why is it para acalmar with an infinitive, instead of something like para que a garganta acalme?

After para to express purpose, Portuguese very often uses:

para + infinitive

So:

para acalmar a garganta = “to calm the throat” / “in order to calm the throat”

This is the most natural and direct way to express purpose in this simple sentence.

A structure like:

para que a garganta se acalme

also exists, but:

it uses a full finite clause (acalme, present subjunctive, 3rd person singular),
it sounds more formal or literary in this context.

In normal speech, for a straightforward purpose, people strongly prefer para + infinitive:

para acalmar a garganta
para descansar
para dormir melhor

Why is it a garganta and not sua garganta (“his throat”)?

Portuguese often uses a definite article with body parts instead of a possessive, when it’s clear whose body part we’re talking about:

Lava as mãos. = Wash (your) hands.
Dói-me a cabeça. = My head hurts.
Ele torceu o pé. = He twisted his foot.

So:

para acalmar a garganta = “to calm the throat”
→ understood as his own throat (Pedro’s throat), unless context indicates otherwise.

Using sua garganta is grammatically correct, but:

it’s less natural in this kind of sentence,
it can sometimes sound more formal or even slightly ambiguous (in writing, sua can mean “his / her / their / your (formal)”).

In everyday language, a garganta is the default way to say “his throat” here.

Does a garganta definitely refer to Pedro’s throat, or could it be someone else’s?

Literally, a garganta just means “the throat”. There is no explicit possessive like “his” or “her”.

By default, in a sentence like:

O Pedro prepara um chá… para acalmar a garganta.

listeners/readers will assume it is Pedro’s own throat, because:

He is the subject of the main verb.
There is no other person mentioned.
It makes natural sense that he’s preparing mint tea to calm his own throat.

If the context made it clear that someone else is ill, then a garganta could refer to that other person instead, but in isolation most people would interpret it as Pedro’s throat.

How would I say “Pedro is preparing a hot mint tea to calm his throat” in European vs Brazilian Portuguese?

Using an explicit continuous/progressive aspect:

European Portuguese:
O Pedro está a preparar um chá de hortelã quente para acalmar a garganta.
Brazilian Portuguese:
O Pedro está preparando um chá de hortelã quente para acalmar a garganta.

The rest of the sentence stays the same; only the progressive form (está a preparar vs está preparando) changes.

How do you pronounce the trickier words here in European Portuguese?

Approximate European Portuguese pronunciations (not exact IPA, but close for an English speaker):

O – like the first sound in English “oo”, but very short.
Pedro – roughly “PEH-droo”
- e in Pe- is like “e” in “get” but shorter.
- dr is pronounced with a tapped r [ɾ]; not like English “dr”.
prepara – “preh-PAH-ruh”
- Unstressed e and final a are quite reduced, almost like very short “uh” sounds.
chá – “shah”
- ch = sh sound.
- á is open and stressed.
hortelã – roughly “or-te-LUHNG”
- h is silent.
- Initial o like “or” but quite short.
- Final -ã is a nasal sound; think “uhn” but nasal (air through the nose).
quente – roughly “KEN-t(uh)”
- qu before e is like k.
- Final -e is usually very reduced or almost inaudible in European Portuguese.
acalmar – “uh-kahl-MAR”
- Again, unstressed vowels are quite reduced.
garganta – roughly “gar-GUHN-tuh”
- g before a is a hard g (as in “go”).
- The r after ga- is often a guttural sound in many accents of European Portuguese.
- Final -a is very reduced.

The main challenges for English speakers are:

The sh sound in chá.
The nasal vowel in hortelã.
The guttural or tapped r sounds (different from English “r”).
The strong vowel reduction in unstressed syllables.