Questions & Answers about À tarde nós comemos o bolo.
Why does "In the afternoon" use À instead of the Portuguese word for "in"?
In English, we say "in the afternoon", but in Portuguese, this time of day uses the preposition a (at/to) instead of em (in). À is a contraction of the preposition a and the feminine word for "the" (a). So, À tarde literally acts like "at the afternoon".
Why does À have a backwards accent mark?
That accent shows that two A's have merged into one. Here, it is the preposition a combining with the feminine article a from a tarde. The accent tells you it is a contraction of both words, rather than just a regular "the" or "to".
Could we drop the word nós and just say À tarde comemos o bolo?
What is the dictionary form of comemos?
The verb is comer (to eat). To say "we eat", you take off the -er ending and add the "we" ending -emos, which gives you comemos.