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O telemóvel não está no bolso, está no sofá.

O telemóvel não está no bolso, está no sofá.
The phone is not in the pocket, it is on the sofa.
From Lesson 10:Preposition for locations (em, no, na)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about O telemóvel não está no bolso, está no sofá.

Why does no mean "in the" for the pocket, but "on the" for the sofa?
In Portuguese, the preposition em (which combines with o to make no) is used for both "in" and "on" (as well as "at"). You don't have to worry about whether the phone is inside a space or resting on top of a surface; no covers both!
If the phone was in a bag (a mala) instead of a pocket, would I still use no?
No, because no is specifically the combination of em + o (masculine "the"). Since mala is a feminine word, you must combine em + a to get na, making it: está na mala.
Why do we use está instead of é for the phone's location?
Está comes from the verb estar, which is used for locations and temporary states. Even though English uses "is" for both, Portuguese specifically uses estar (not ser) to talk about where physical objects are located.
The second part of the sentence just says está no sofá. Shouldn't there be a word for "it"?
You could say ele está no sofá, but in Portuguese, it is very common to drop the subject pronoun (like I, you, he, she, it) when it is already clear from the context. Since we just established that we are talking about o telemóvel, we can jump straight to the verb.

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