Costumo folhear o jornal de manhã, enquanto bebo café.

Costumo is the 1st person singular present of costumar.

In this kind of sentence, costumar + infinitive means:

• to usually do something
• to tend to do something
• to be in the habit of doing something

So costumo folhear means I usually leaf through / I tend to leaf through.

It makes the whole sentence sound habitual, not like something happening only once.

Because costumar is normally followed by another verb in the infinitive.

The pattern is:

costumar + infinitive

Examples:

• Costumo ler à noite. — I usually read at night.
• Costumamos sair cedo. — We usually leave early.

So in your sentence:

• costumo = I usually
• folhear = to leaf through

Together: I usually leaf through...

Not quite.

Folhear means to leaf through, to flip through, or to browse through pages. It suggests a lighter, quicker action than ler.

So:

• folhear o jornal = to flip through the newspaper / skim it
• ler o jornal = to read the newspaper

If you use folhear, it often suggests you are:

• looking through headlines,
• scanning pages,
• not necessarily reading every article fully.

Portuguese often uses the definite article more than English does.

So o jornal here is very natural, even though English often says simply the newspaper or sometimes just the paper.

In this sentence, o jornal can mean:

• the newspaper in general as part of your routine, or
• the specific newspaper you normally read.

Leaving out the article here would sound less natural in standard Portuguese.

Yes. De manhã is the normal everyday way to say in the morning.

Examples:

• de manhã — in the morning
• de tarde — in the afternoon
• de noite — at night / in the evening-night period

In European Portuguese, de manhã is very common and natural in speech.

You may also see pela manhã, but that is often a bit more formal or less everyday in this kind of sentence.

Because Portuguese does not use the gerund the same way English does.

English often says:

• while drinking coffee

But in Portuguese, a very natural structure is:

enquanto + finite verb

So:

• enquanto bebo café = while I drink coffee / while I’m drinking coffee

Also, in European Portuguese, the continuous idea is usually expressed with:

estar a + infinitive

not with the gerund as often as in Brazilian Portuguese.

So enquanto bebendo café would not be the normal choice here.

Yes, absolutely.

Both are possible, but there is a slight difference in feel:

• enquanto bebo café — simple, natural, habitual
• enquanto estou a beber café — more explicitly focuses on the action being in progress

Because the sentence already describes a routine with costumo, the simpler enquanto bebo café sounds very natural.

In European Portuguese, estou a beber is the normal progressive form, not estou bebendo.

Because Portuguese often drops subject pronouns when the verb ending already makes the subject clear.

Here, costumo already tells you the subject is I.

So:

• Costumo folhear... = I usually leaf through...

You can add eu if you want emphasis or contrast:

• Eu costumo folhear o jornal...

That might sound like:

• As for me, I usually leaf through the newspaper...
• I usually do that (maybe unlike someone else)

But without eu, the sentence is perfectly normal.

Because beber café is a common general expression meaning to drink coffee.

Here café is used like an uncountable substance, similar to:

• drink coffee
• drink tea
• eat bread

So:

• bebo café = I drink coffee

If you say bebo um café, that usually means:

• I have a coffee
• often one coffee / one espresso

So the version in your sentence sounds more general and routine-like.

It describes a habit.

The key word is costumo. That immediately tells you this is something the speaker usually does.

So the meaning is not:

• I am leafing through the newspaper this morning

It is more like:

• I usually leaf through the newspaper in the morning while drinking coffee

Even though the verbs are in the present tense, the sentence is about a repeated routine.

It is very natural here and good standard punctuation.

The comma helps separate:

• the main clause: Costumo folhear o jornal de manhã
• the subordinate clause: enquanto bebo café

In short, the comma makes the sentence easier to read and sounds well structured in writing.

You may sometimes see variation in punctuation in other sentences, especially shorter ones, but with this sentence, the comma is perfectly normal and appropriate.

It would still be correct, but the nuance would change.

Compare:

• Costumo folhear o jornal...
  = I usually leaf through / skim the newspaper

• Costumo ler o jornal...
  = I usually read the newspaper

So folhear suggests a quicker, lighter action, while ler suggests more complete reading.

If you want the idea of casually checking headlines over coffee, folhear is a very good choice.