Word
A casa deles é bonita.
Meaning
Their house is beautiful.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of A casa deles é bonita.
ser
to be
a casa
the house
bonito
beautiful
dele
his (forms: dela, deles, delas)
Questions & Answers about A casa deles é bonita.
Why does this sentence use deles for "their", and does it change to match the word casa?
Deles literally means "of them". In Portuguese, words like dele, dela, deles, and delas tell us who the owner is. Because the owners here are a group of males (or a mixed group), we use deles. It does not change to match the feminine word casa. If the house belonged to a group of women, we would say A casa delas.
Why is the word order A casa deles instead of putting "their" before the noun like in English?
Why does the sentence end with bonita instead of bonito?
Adjectives must match the noun they are describing. Here, the adjective is describing the house (casa), which is a feminine word. Therefore, we use the feminine form bonita. The masculine owners (deles) do not change the fact that the house itself is feminine!
Why do we use é instead of está for "is"?