Breakdown of Os desportos radicais exigem paraquedas de boa qualidade.
de
of / from / by (means of transport) / wearing (attire)
bom
good
o desporto
the sport
o
him/it (m)
a qualidade
the quality
exigir
to demand
radical
radical, daring
o paraquedas
the parachute
Questions & Answers about Os desportos radicais exigem paraquedas de boa qualidade.
Why does this sentence use desportos instead of esportes?
In European Portuguese, the word for sports is desportos. You will often see esportes in Brazilian Portuguese materials, but in Portugal, you should always use desporto or desportos.
How do you make a compound word like paraquedas singular or plural?
Paraquedas (parachute or parachutes) is an invariable noun, meaning the word itself stays exactly the same in both the singular and the plural. You just change the words around it to show number: o paraquedas (the parachute) versus os paraquedas (the parachutes). It is formed from the verb parar (to stop) and the plural noun quedas (falls).
Didn't paraquedas used to have a hyphen and an accent?
Yes! Before the 1990 Orthographic Agreement, it was written as pára-quedas. The modern spelling reform removed the accent from the verb form para and fused the compound word together without a hyphen, making it paraquedas.
Why is boa placed before qualidade instead of after it?
While adjectives generally follow nouns in Portuguese, short, common adjectives of evaluation like bom/boa and mau/má frequently come before the noun. The phrase de boa qualidade (of good quality) acts as a fixed, idiomatic chunk, so putting boa first sounds much more natural here.
Learn Os desportos radicais exigem paraquedas de boa qualidade and more in Portuguese
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free