Breakdown of A festa de aniversário é no sábado.
ser
to be
de
of / from / by (means of transport) / wearing (attire)
no
in the / on the / at the (m, f, pl forms: na, nos, nas)
o sábado
the Saturday
Questions & Answers about A festa de aniversário é no sábado.
The lesson is about the near future. Why doesn't this sentence use vai ser?
Just like in English, you can use the present tense for scheduled events in the future. You could absolutely say vai ser no sábado (it is going to be on Saturday) using ir plus the infinitive, but using the present tense é is very common and natural for fixed plans.
Since a party is a temporary event, shouldn't we use está instead of é?
Why do we use no to say 'on' Saturday?
In Portuguese, to say something happens on a certain day, we use the preposition em (in/on/at). Because days of the week take the masculine definite article (o), the preposition em merges with o to make the word no.
Why say festa de aniversário instead of just aniversário?
The word aniversário just refers to the date of your birthday or anniversary. To talk about the actual celebration event, you use the phrase festa de aniversário (literally party of birthday).