Question 1

Why does hotel change to hotéis in the plural, and where did the accent come from?

Accepted Answer

Words ending in -el change the -l to -is in the plural. However, to keep the open "eh" sound on the letter e, Portuguese adds an acute accent, resulting in hotéis. Without the accent, the pronunciation rules would shift the stress and change the vowel sound.

Question 2

How do we get bons from the word for "good"?

Accepted Answer

The singular masculine word for "good" is bom. In Portuguese, when a word ends in the letter -m, we form the plural by changing the -m to -ns. Since hotéis is masculine and plural, the adjective bom becomes bons to match it.

Question 3

Why is it muito and not muitos if we are talking about plural hotels?

Accepted Answer

In this sentence, muito means "very" and it acts as an adverb describing how good they are. Adverbs never change their endings to match plural or feminine words. You would only use muitos (many) if it were describing a noun directly, such as muitos hotéis (many hotels).

Question 4

Why use são instead of estão?

Accepted Answer

Both são and estão mean "are", but são comes from the verb ser, which is used for permanent or inherent qualities. Saying the hotels são muito bons means they are fundamentally of good quality, which is considered a permanent trait rather than a temporary state.

Question 5

Why is it just em Lisboa and not na Lisboa?

Accepted Answer

Most cities in Portugal, including Lisbon, do not take a definite article before their names. Since na is a combination of em + a (in + the), we just use the plain preposition em (in) when talking about Lisbon.

Os hotéis em Lisboa são muito bons.

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