Learn Portuguese (Portugal): O teu pai cozinha com pouco sal.

O teu pai cozinha com pouco sal.

Your father cooks with little salt.

Breakdown of O teu pai cozinha com pouco sal.

o pai

the father / the parents

com

with

teu

your (informal, m/f/pl: teu, tua, teus, tuas)

cozinhar

to cook

Questions & Answers about O teu pai cozinha com pouco sal.

Why do we use pouco here instead of pouca?

The word pouco (little or not much) changes to match the gender and number of the noun it describes. Here, it describes sal (salt), which is a masculine, singular word. Therefore, we use the masculine singular form, pouco.

How do I know if a word like sal is masculine or feminine?

Words ending in consonants can sometimes be hard to guess, but most words ending in -l, like sal (salt) and sol (sun), are masculine. Because it is masculine, it takes the masculine word pouco.

Wait, I thought cozinha meant kitchen?

It does! But it is also the he, she, or it form of the verb cozinhar (to cook). Because we are talking about O teu pai (Your father), we use this third-person singular form. You can tell it is an action here because of its place in the sentence.

Why is there an O at the very beginning of the sentence?

In European Portuguese, you almost always put a definite article like o or a (meaning the) before a possessive word like teu (your). Because pai is masculine and singular, we use O.