Learn Portuguese (Portugal): O carro está em frente da casa.

O carro está em frente da casa.

The car is in front of the house.

Breakdown of O carro está em frente da casa.

to be (temporary / location)

em frente de

in front of

Questions & Answers about O carro está em frente da casa.

Why does the sentence use da instead of just de?

The phrase for "in front of" is em frente de. Since "the house" is feminine (a casa), the preposition de combines with the word a (the). In Portuguese, de + a always shrinks into the contraction da (of the).

Why do we use está for location instead of é?

In Portuguese, we use the verb estar (which becomes está for "he/she/it") to talk about the physical location of things, people, and places. Even though a car's location is temporary and a house's location is permanent, you will always use estar to say where something is physically located.

Do I always have to include de after em frente?

You need the de (or its contractions like da and do) whenever you mention the specific thing it is in front of. If you just wanted to say "The car is in front" without mentioning the house, you would drop the de and simply say O carro está em frente.