Breakdown of Seja sólido seja mole, custa-nos a trincar o pão.
ser
to be
o pão
the bread
a
to / at (direction)
mole
soft
-nos
them (m, after nasal sound)
custar a
to be hard (for someone) to do
trincar
to bite (into something hard)
sólido
solid
Questions & Answers about Seja sólido seja mole, custa-nos a trincar o pão.
Why is custa singular here when the English translation says "we find it hard"?
In the structure custar a plus an infinitive, the verb custar does not agree with the person finding it hard. Instead, the action itself, which is trincar o pão, acts as the grammatical subject. Literally, the sentence is saying that biting the bread is hard for us. The person experiencing the difficulty is expressed as the indirect object pronoun nos.
Is the preposition a mandatory in the phrase custa-nos a trincar?
In traditional European Portuguese, when custar means to be difficult, it pairs with the preposition a before the infinitive. This is the specific verb valency anomaly this lesson covers. However, in modern everyday Portuguese, you will also hear people drop the a and just say custa-nos trincar. Both are understood, but keeping the a is very typical of the European variety.
Why do we use the subjunctive form seja twice at the beginning?
Repeating the present subjunctive like this is a common Portuguese structure used to mean whether X or Y. Literally, it translates to be it solid, be it soft. You can apply this repeating pattern to almost any contrasting pair, such as seja hoje seja amanhã for whether it is today or tomorrow.
I learned the verb morder for to bite. How is trincar different in this context?
While morder is the general word for biting, trincar specifically means to bite into something hard or crispy, often producing a crunch. Since bread in Portugal typically has a very crusty exterior, trincar is the most natural verb to describe taking a bite out of it.
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