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Tu não vais à festa? Porquê?

Tu não vais à festa? Porquê?
You are not going to the party? Why?
From Lesson 56:Coordinating conjunctions (e, mas, ou, porque)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Tu não vais à festa? Porquê?

The lesson teaches porque, but this sentence uses Porquê. What is the difference?
Porque without the accent usually means because and is used to give a reason or connect ideas. Porquê with the circumflex (hat) accent means why. You must use porquê when the question word stands completely alone, as it does here, or when it comes at the very end of a sentence.
What does the backwards accent on à mean?
It shows that two words have merged into one. The verb ir (to go) requires the preposition a (to). The word festa (party) needs the feminine word for the, which is also a. Instead of clumsily saying a a festa, Portuguese combines them into à.
Which verb does vais come from?
It comes from the highly irregular verb ir, which means to go. Vais is the tu (informal you) form. Keep in mind that Portuguese doesn't use a separate present continuous tense like English does for this, so vais translates to both you go and you are going.
Why isn't there a word like do or are to start the first question?
In Portuguese, you don't need extra helper words to make a question. You just take the normal statement—Tu não vais à festa—and add a question mark! When speaking, you simply raise the pitch of your voice at the end to show you are asking something.

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