Learn Portuguese (Portugal): A família come ao meio-dia.

A família come ao meio-dia.

The family eats at noon.

Breakdown of A família come ao meio-dia.

comer

to eat

to the / at the (m.sg; f.sg à, m.pl aos, f.pl às)

Questions & Answers about A família come ao meio-dia.

The lesson is about time contractions like à and às. Why do we use ao here?

When telling time by the hour, we use às because the word horas (hours) is feminine plural. But meio-dia (noon) is a masculine word. To say "at noon", we combine the preposition a (at) with the masculine word for "the" (o). Together, a + o becomes ao.

Why is meio-dia masculine if it ends in an "a"?

The word meio-dia ends in dia (day), which is a famous exception in Portuguese! Even though it ends in the letter "a", it is a masculine word (o dia). Because of this, any word built with it, like meio-dia, is also masculine.

What is the literal meaning of meio-dia, and why does it have a hyphen?

It literally translates to "half-day" (meio means half). The hyphen is completely necessary when referring to the exact time of noon (12:00 PM). If you write it without the hyphen (meio dia), it refers to a duration of time, like working for "half a day".

Since a family has multiple people, why is the verb come singular?