Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Ele comeu o bolo inteiro.

Ele comeu o bolo inteiro.

He ate the whole cake.

Breakdown of Ele comeu o bolo inteiro.

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Questions & Answers about Ele comeu o bolo inteiro.

Could I use o bolo todo instead of o bolo inteiro?

Yes, they mean the exact same thing here. O bolo todo is very common in everyday spoken Portuguese in Portugal. Just make sure not to confuse it with todo o bolo, which also means the whole cake but sounds slightly more formal, or todos os bolos, which means all the cakes.

What if I used the word tudo instead of inteiro?

You cannot use tudo to describe a specific noun like bolo. Tudo is an invariable pronoun that means everything in a general sense. If you wanted to say he ate everything, you would just say Ele comeu tudo, dropping the cake entirely.

In English we might say he 'ate up' the whole cake to emphasize finishing it. Does Portuguese do anything similar?

Portuguese does not use phrasal verbs like 'eat up'. The idea of finishing the cake completely is already fully expressed by using the completed past tense comeu along with the adjective inteiro. No extra words are needed to show the action was completed.