Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Há pouca fruta na mesa. - There is little fruit on the table.

Há pouca fruta na mesa.

There is little fruit on the table.

Breakdown of Há pouca fruta na mesa.

a mesa

the table

haver

to be (there is / there are)

in / on / at

pouco

little

Questions & Answers about Há pouca fruta na mesa.

Why is it pouca ending in "-a" instead of pouco?

In Portuguese, words that express quantity (like pouco for "little/few" and muito for "a lot/many") must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because fruta is a feminine singular noun, the quantifier changes to its feminine singular form, pouca.

Does pouca fruta mean the fruit is physically small, or that there isn't much of it?

It means there isn't much of it (a small amount). Quantifiers like pouca come before the noun to show quantity. If you wanted to say the fruit itself is physically small in size, you would use an adjective like pequena placed after the noun: fruta pequena.

Why does the sentence start with Há to mean "There is"?

Há is the extremely common verb form used to say "there is" or "there are" in Portuguese. It comes from the verb haver. Unlike English, which uses two words ("there" + "is/are"), Portuguese just uses this one unchanging word whether it is followed by a singular or plural noun.

Where does the word na come from in na mesa?