Breakdown of Vais comprar essas calças?
comprar
to buy
ir
to go
as calças
the pants
esse
that (esse, essa, esses, essas)
Questions & Answers about Vais comprar essas calças?
Why use essas here instead of estas or aquelas?
In Portuguese, these words show how close an object is to the people talking. Estas means "these" (near me, the speaker). Aquelas means "those over there" (far from both of us). Essas means "those" (near you, the listener). The speaker uses essas because the person they are talking to is probably holding the pants or standing right next to them!
Why does essas end in -as?
Demonstrative words like "this" and "that" must match the gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun they describe. Because calças is a feminine plural word, the base word esse changes to essas.
Why is the verb comprar in its base form (infinitive)?
Where is the word for "you" in this sentence?
In Portuguese, you often don't need to say the subject pronoun (like tu for "you") because the verb ending already tells us who is doing the action. The verb form vais only ever goes with tu, so the word tu is simply dropped to sound more natural.