Word
Ele vai ao ginásio e eu vou à biblioteca.
Meaning
He goes to the gym and I go to the library.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ele vai ao ginásio e eu vou à biblioteca.
eu
I
e
and
ele
he
ao
to the / at the (m.sg; f.sg à, m.pl aos, f.pl às)
Questions & Answers about Ele vai ao ginásio e eu vou à biblioteca.
Why do we use ao before ginásio but à before biblioteca?
In Portuguese, the preposition a (to) merges with the word for "the" (o or a). Because ginásio is masculine, it uses o, so a + o becomes ao. Because biblioteca is feminine, it uses a, and a + a merges into à.
What does the backwards accent on à mean?
That accent is called a grave accent, and it tells us that a contraction happened. It shows that the preposition a (to) and the feminine article a (the) bumped into each other and merged into one letter. It is pronounced as an open "ah" sound.
Vai and vou look completely different. Are they the same verb?
Could I say ele vai para o ginásio instead of ao ginásio?