Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Elas têm doze cadernos no quarto. - They have twelve notebooks in the bedroom.

Elas têm doze cadernos no quarto.

They have twelve notebooks in the bedroom.

Breakdown of Elas têm doze cadernos no quarto.

in the / on the / at the (m, f, pl forms: na, nos, nas)

Questions & Answers about Elas têm doze cadernos no quarto.

Why does têm have a circumflex accent (^) on it?

The accent shows that this is the plural form. For the verb ter (to have), tem means 'he/she/it has' and têm means 'they have'. The accent also tells you to pronounce it with a stronger nasal sound.

Why does the sentence start with Elas instead of Eles?

Elas means 'they' for an exclusively female group. If the group of people having the notebooks included even one male, or if we did not know their genders, we would use the masculine form Eles.

I learned that em means 'in'. Why does this sentence use no quarto?

In Portuguese, the preposition em (in) must combine with the word for 'the'. Since quarto (bedroom) is a masculine noun, we need the masculine word for 'the', which is o. When you push em and o together, they contract to make the word no (in the).

Does the number doze change if the items are feminine?

No. Unlike the numbers one (um or uma) and two (dois or duas), the number twelve (doze) has only one form. It stays exactly the same whether it is describing masculine nouns like cadernos or feminine nouns.