Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Podes comer muito açúcar?

Podes comer muito açúcar?

Can you eat a lot of sugar?

Breakdown of Podes comer muito açúcar?

Questions & Answers about Podes comer muito açúcar?

Why is it muito here and not another form like muita?

When it means "a lot of" or "much", muito acts as a quantifier and has to match the gender and number of the noun it describes. Because açúcar (sugar) is a masculine, singular noun, we use the masculine singular form: muito.

Where is the word for "you" in this sentence?

It is built into the verb! Podes is the "you" (informal, singular) form of the verb poder (can / to be able to). In Portuguese, the verb ending tells you who is doing the action, so the pronoun tu (you) is usually dropped.

Why doesn't the verb comer change its ending?

When you use two verbs back-to-back like "can eat" (podes comer), only the first verb is changed to match the person. The second verb stays in its original dictionary form (the infinitive).

What do the accent marks in açúcar tell us to do?

The mark under the c is a cedilla, which gives it a soft "s" sound instead of a hard "k" sound. The accent on the ú tells you to put the strongest stress on that middle syllable when speaking.