Word
O meu telemóvel é mais leve do que o teu computador.
Meaning
My mobile phone is lighter than your computer.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of O meu telemóvel é mais leve do que o teu computador.
ser
to be
o telemóvel
the mobile phone
meu
my (m/f/pl: meu, minha, meus, minhas)
o computador
the computer
Questions & Answers about O meu telemóvel é mais leve do que o teu computador.
Why does the Portuguese sentence say mais leve instead of having a single word for "lighter"?
In Portuguese, you don't add endings like "-er" to adjectives to compare them. Instead, you always use the word mais (more) before the adjective. So, "lighter" is phrased literally as "more light": mais leve.
Does do que mean "than"? Can I just use que?
Yes, do que translates to "than" when making comparisons. You can actually use either do que or just que here (mais leve que o teu computador is also correct). However, do que is extremely common in everyday European Portuguese.
Why are there the words O and o before meu telemóvel and teu computador? Isn't that like saying "the my" and "the your"?
Exactly! In European Portuguese, it is the standard rule to put a definite article (o or a, meaning "the") right before possessive words like meu (my) and teu (your). Because telemóvel and computador are both masculine nouns, we use the masculine article o.
Why do we use é here instead of está? Isn't weight something that can change?