Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Eu como o cereal com o leite.

Eu como o cereal com o leite.

I eat the cereal with the milk.

Breakdown of Eu como o cereal com o leite.

Questions & Answers about Eu como o cereal com o leite.

I have seen como used to mean the question word 'how'. Why does it mean 'eat' here?

Como is the 'I' form of the regular verb comer (to eat). So eu como translates to 'I eat'. It just happens to be spelled and pronounced exactly the same as the question word como. You can always tell them apart by looking at the rest of the sentence.

How do I know if words ending in -e like leite are masculine or feminine?

Nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine, so you have to memorize the gender when you learn the word. In this sentence, we see the masculine article o before leite, which is a helpful reminder that it is masculine: o leite.

Why didn't the words com and o combine into a contraction here?

Unlike prepositions such as de or em which combine with o to make do and no, the preposition com (with) does not contract with definite articles. You just write them as two separate words: com o.

Why do we use the articles for o cereal and o leite? Could I just say Eu como cereal com leite?

In Portuguese, definite articles like o and a are used much more often than in English. Even if you are talking about eating cereal with milk in general, Portuguese speakers usually prefer to include the articles. While leaving them out would be understood, keeping them sounds much more natural to a native speaker.