Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Chego por volta das oito.

In Portuguese, the present tense is very commonly used to talk about the near or planned future, especially with verbs of motion like chegar (to arrive). While vou chegar (I am going to arrive) is also perfectly correct, chego feels very natural and conversational when discussing immediate plans like this.

What does the phrase por volta das literally mean?

The phrase por volta de is a fixed expression meaning "around" or "about" when referring to time. Literally, volta means "turn," so it translates to something like "by the turn of." It is extremely common in spoken Portuguese for giving approximate times.

Why do we use the feminine plural das before the number oito?

The word das is a contraction of de (of) plus the feminine plural article as (the). We need the feminine plural here because it refers to the hidden word horas (hours), which is feminine. Even though horas is dropped from the sentence, the article still has to agree with it.