O turista está no hotel.

Questions & Answers about O turista está no hotel.

Wait, why is it O turista? Doesn't the -a at the end mean it should be feminine?
Words ending in -ista (like turista, dentista, or artista) can be either masculine or feminine depending on who you are talking about. Here, O turista tells us this specific tourist is a man. If it were a woman, it would be A turista.
Why do we use está instead of é for "is" in this sentence?
In Portuguese, we always use the verb estar (which está comes from) to talk about physical locations. This is true for temporary locations, like a tourist at a hotel, but also for permanent ones, like a city on a map! The other "to be" verb, ser (which gives us é), is used for characteristics and identity, but not for where things are.
Where does the word no come from? The translation just says "at the".
no is a mandatory combination of the word em (in/at/on) and the masculine word for "the", which is o. Whenever em and o are next to each other, they must squash together to form no. You cannot say em o hotel.
Does the word hotel sound exactly like it does in English?
Not quite! In Portuguese, the letter h is always completely silent at the beginning of a word. You pronounce it as "oh-TEL", with the emphasis on the final syllable.

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