Breakdown of Ele não come carne, então come peixe.
não
not / no
ele
he
comer
to eat
a carne
the meat
o peixe
the fish
então
then / so
Questions & Answers about Ele não come carne, então come peixe.
Is então functioning as a conjunction like e or mas here?
Yes! While a conjunction like porque tells us the reason something happens (because), então gives the result (so, therefore). It connects the two halves of the sentence to show that eating fish is the direct result of him not eating meat.
Why is there no ele before the second come?
In Portuguese, you don't need to repeat the subject pronoun (the person doing the action) if it's already obvious. Since the first half of the sentence establishes that we are talking about ele (he), we can simply say come peixe rather than repeating ele come peixe.
Why doesn't the sentence say a carne and o peixe?
When talking about food in a general, uncountable sense (meat or fish in general, rather than a specific piece of food on a plate), Portuguese usually leaves out the words for "the" (o or a). This works exactly the same way it does in English!
What is the dictionary form of the verb come?
It comes from the regular verb comer (to eat). To match the subject ele (he) in the present tense, you drop the -er ending and add -e, giving you come.
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