Breakdown of Quantas mentiras ele contou!
quanto
how much / how many
a mentira
the lie
contar
to tell / to count
Questions & Answers about Quantas mentiras ele contou!
Why is the verb contar used here instead of dizer?
In English, you "tell" a lie, but Portuguese learners sometimes try to translate this using dizer (to say/tell). In Portuguese, the natural set phrase is contar uma mentira (literally "to count a lie" or "to tell a tale"). You use contar for telling stories, jokes, and lies.
Is the word order the same if I want to ask this as a question?
Yes! In Portuguese, exclamations and questions usually have the exact same word order. If you change the exclamation mark to a question mark (Quantas mentiras ele contou?), it becomes the question "How many lies did he tell?". Your spoken intonation is what makes the difference clear to the listener.
Why does Quantas end in "-as" in this sentence?
Could I use the verb mentir (to lie) instead?
You can use the verb mentir, but you would have to change the structure. You could exclaim O quanto ele mentiu! (How much he lied!). However, because this specific sentence focuses on counting the individual lies ("How many lies"), using the noun mentiras with the verb contar is the most natural choice.
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