O cheiro do sabonete faz-me lembrar a casa da minha avó.

Because in Portuguese, de + o contracts to do, and de + a contracts to da.

So:

• de + o sabonete → do sabonete
• de + a minha avó → da minha avó

These contractions are normal and expected in everyday Portuguese.

In this sentence:

• o cheiro do sabonete = the smell of the soap
• a casa da minha avó = my grandmother’s house / literally the house of my grandmother

Literally, faz-me lembrar means makes me remember.

Breakdown:

• faz = it makes / does
• -me = me
• lembrar = to remember / to remind

So the structure is:

• X faz-me lembrar Y = X reminds me of Y
• literally: X makes me remember Y

This is a very natural way to express to remind someone of something in Portuguese.

This is a key feature of European Portuguese.

In Portugal, object pronouns often come after the verb, attached with a hyphen. This is called enclisis.

So:

• faz-me = makes me
• diz-me = tells me
• ajuda-me = helps me

In Brazilian Portuguese, you will very often hear me faz, but in European Portuguese, faz-me is the standard form in a sentence like this.

So for a learner of Portuguese from Portugal, faz-me lembrar is exactly what you should expect.

Because the me already belongs to faz, not to lembrar.

The structure here is:

• O cheiro do sabonete faz-me lembrar...
• literally: The smell of the soap makes me remember...

So:

• faz-me = makes me
• lembrar = remember

The me is the object of fazer, not a separate pronoun attached to lembrar.

If you said lembrar-me, that would be a different structure.

Because Portuguese has two related patterns:

1. lembrar algo / alguém
   = to remember something / someone

2. lembrar-se de algo / alguém
   = to remember something / someone

So Portuguese can express this idea in more than one way.

In this sentence, the verb is used in the pattern:

• fazer alguém lembrar algo
• to make someone remember something

That is why we get:

• faz-me lembrar a casa da minha avó

and not:

• faz-me lembrar da casa da minha avó in standard European Portuguese for this structure

English speakers often expect a preposition because English says remind me of, but Portuguese does not always work that way.

Yes. In this sentence, a casa da minha avó is the thing being remembered, so it functions as the direct object of lembrar.

Structure:

• O cheiro do sabonete = subject
• faz-me = makes me
• lembrar a casa da minha avó = remember my grandmother’s house

So a casa da minha avó is not a destination, and it is not an indirect object. It is simply what the smell makes me remember.

Because here a is the definite article the, not the preposition to.

So:

• a casa = the house

not

• to the house

This matters because English speakers often see a and think of the preposition to, but in Portuguese a can be either:

• an article: the
• a preposition: to

In this sentence, it is clearly the article.

Both relate to soap, but they are not always used in exactly the same way.

In European Portuguese:

• sabonete usually means a bar of toilet soap, especially for washing the body
• sabão is a more general word for soap, often in a broader or more traditional sense

So in this sentence, o cheiro do sabonete suggests the smell of a specific bar of soap, which fits the nostalgic feeling of the sentence very well.

Because cheiro is a masculine noun in Portuguese.

So:

• o cheiro = the smell
• um cheiro = a smell

This is something you simply need to learn with the noun. Portuguese nouns have grammatical gender, and cheiro is masculine.

Avó means grandmother.

Compare:

• avó = grandmother
• avô = grandfather

The written accent helps distinguish them:

• ó in avó
• ô in avô

This is an important contrast in Portuguese.

Yes, very common.

In European Portuguese, fazer lembrar is a natural way to express that something reminds you of something else.

For example:

• Esta música faz-me lembrar o verão.
  = This song reminds me of summer.

• O cheiro da chuva faz-me lembrar a infância.
  = The smell of rain reminds me of childhood.

So the sentence sounds natural and idiomatic in Portuguese from Portugal.

Yes, that is also possible.

• O cheiro do sabonete faz-me lembrar a casa da minha avó
• O cheiro do sabonete lembra-me a casa da minha avó

Both can express a similar idea: The smell of the soap reminds me of my grandmother’s house.

The version with faz-me lembrar is a little more literally makes me remember, while lembra-me is more directly reminds me. Both are understandable and natural, though usage can vary by speaker and context.

A broad guide would be:

U sheiru du sabunét fáz-mə lẽbrár a káza da minha avó

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• o in O often sounds close to u in connected speech
• cheiro sounds roughly like SHAY-roo / SHAY-ru
• do sounds like du
• faz-me often has a reduced me, sounding like mə
• lembrar has a nasal vowel in the first syllable
• avó has stress on the last syllable

European Portuguese often reduces unstressed vowels more than Brazilian Portuguese, which is why some words may sound less like their spelling suggests.

Because Portuguese normally expresses this idea as:

• a casa da minha avó
  literally the house of my grandmother

This is the normal and natural way to say my grandmother’s house.

English often uses ’s, but Portuguese usually uses:

• de + person
• or the contracted forms do / da / dos / das

So:

• the house of my grandmother → a casa da minha avó

That is the standard structure.