No quiosque vendem jornais, mas também vendem folhetos sobre a cidade para quem a quer conhecer melhor.

At the kiosk they sell newspapers, but they also sell leaflets about the city for those who want to get to know it better.

Breakdown of No quiosque vendem jornais, mas também vendem folhetos sobre a cidade para quem a quer conhecer melhor.

• também: also
• querer: to want
• mas: but
• a cidade: the city
• em: at
• para: for
• sobre: about
• melhor: better
• o jornal: the newspaper
• a: it
• quem: those who
• vender: to sell
• o quiosque: the kiosk
• o folheto: the leaflet
• conhecer: to get to know

Questions & Answers about No quiosque vendem jornais, mas também vendem folhetos sobre a cidade para quem a quer conhecer melhor.

Why does the sentence start with No quiosque?

No is a contraction of em + o, so no quiosque means in the kiosk or, more naturally in English here, at the kiosk.

Portuguese often puts the location first to set the scene. So No quiosque vendem jornais... is very natural. You could also say Vendem jornais no quiosque..., but the original starts by telling you where this is happening.

The article o in no suggests a specific kiosk, or at least a kiosk understood from the context.

Why is vendem plural when there is no subject written?

Here vendem is a 3rd person plural verb with an unstated subject. It works a bit like English they sell or people sell.

So:

• vendem jornais = they sell newspapers
• the sentence does not need to say who they are

This is very common in Portuguese when the exact people are not important or are obvious from context.

Also, vendem is not agreeing with jornais. Jornais is the direct object, not the subject.

What does mas também mean here, and why is vendem repeated?

Mas também means but also or but they also in context.

So the sentence first says one thing:

• they sell newspapers

and then adds another:

• they also sell brochures

Repeating vendem is completely natural and makes the structure very clear:

• vendem jornais, mas também vendem folhetos...

Portuguese often repeats the verb in this kind of sentence instead of leaving it understood.

Why are there no articles before jornais and folhetos?

Because the sentence is talking about those items in a general, indefinite way:

• vendem jornais = they sell newspapers
• vendem folhetos = they sell brochures/leaflets

This is similar to English, where you would also normally say they sell newspapers, not they sell the newspapers, unless you mean some specific newspapers.

If the speaker meant specific ones, you might see:

• os jornais
• os folhetos

What exactly does folhetos sobre a cidade mean?

Folhetos usually means leaflets, pamphlets, or brochures.

Sobre a cidade means about the city.

So folhetos sobre a cidade is most naturally something like:

• brochures about the city
• tourist leaflets about the city
• informational pamphlets about the city

In this sentence, it strongly suggests material for visitors or people who want to learn more about the place.

What does para quem mean in this sentence?

Para quem literally means for who, but in natural English here it means:

• for anyone who
• for whoever
• for people who

So:

• folhetos sobre a cidade para quem a quer conhecer melhor

means brochures about the city for people who want to get to know it better.

This is a very common use of quem after a preposition such as para.

What does the a refer to in quem a quer conhecer melhor?

The a refers to a cidade.

Since cidade is a feminine singular noun, the direct object pronoun is a.

So:

• a cidade → a

In English, we would normally say it for a city, but Portuguese object pronouns follow grammatical gender, so the feminine form is used.

Why is it a and not ela?

Because a is the normal unstressed direct object pronoun in standard Portuguese.

Here the city is the direct object of conhecer, so Portuguese uses:

• a

not:

• ela

So standard forms are:

• quer conhecê-la
• a quer conhecer

Using ela as a direct object in a sentence like this is not the normal standard choice in European Portuguese.

Why is the pronoun before quer instead of attached to conhecer?

This is about clitic pronoun placement, which is a big topic in Portuguese.

In European Portuguese, object pronouns often appear before the conjugated verb in certain environments, especially inside subordinate clauses introduced by words like quem. That is why you get:

• quem a quer conhecer melhor

Literally, that is something like:

• who it wants to know better

But in natural English:

• who wants to get to know it better

You may also hear another very natural version:

• para quem quer conhecê-la melhor

Both are possible in practice. The sentence you have uses the pattern where the pronoun comes before quer.

Why does Portuguese use conhecer here instead of saber?

Because conhecer and saber do not mean the same kind of to know.

Use conhecer for:

• knowing a person
• being familiar with a place
• getting to know something through experience

Use saber for:

• knowing a fact
• knowing information
• knowing how to do something

So here:

• conhecer a cidade melhor = to know the city better / get to know the city better

That is much more natural than saber in this context.

What does melhor mean here?

Melhor means better, but here it works with the verb conhecer:

• conhecer melhor = to know better / to get to know better

So the idea is not that the city itself becomes better. The meaning is that someone wants a better or deeper knowledge of the city.

In natural English, this part is often best understood as:

• for people who want to get to know the city better

Does para quem a quer conhecer melhor describe the brochures, or the whole sentence?

Most naturally, it describes folhetos sobre a cidade.

So the sense is:

• they sell brochures about the city
• and those brochures are intended for people who want to get to know the city better

In other words, the final part tells you who the brochures are for.