Questions & Answers about Eu leio o jornal de manhã.
I thought we were learning the simple past. Is leio in the past tense?
No, leio is the present tense meaning 'I read' or 'I am reading'. Since your current lesson is about the past tense (pretérito perfeito), it is helpful to know that ler follows the exact regular -er rules in the past! You just drop the -er and add the regular ending -i to get li. To say 'I read the newspaper this morning', you would say Eu li o jornal de manhã.
Why is the present tense 'I' form leio? Shouldn't it just be 'lo' if we remove the -er from ler?
Ler (to read) is highly irregular in the present tense. Instead of just dropping the -er and adding an -o like regular verbs, it gains an extra 'i' to become leio.
Why does it say de manhã instead of using em or na for 'in the'?
In Portuguese, the preposition de is used to describe general parts of the day. You will say de manhã (in the morning), de tarde (in the afternoon), and de noite (at night). You generally only use na (which is em + a) if you are talking about a very specific morning, like 'on the morning of the wedding'.
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