Breakdown of A minha avó costumava comprar-me um brinquedo.
um
a / an / some (all forms)
comprar
to buy
meu
my
a
to / at (direction)
me
me
a avó
the grandmother
costumar
to usually do
o brinquedo
the toy
Questions & Answers about A minha avó costumava comprar-me um brinquedo.
Why does the verb costumar end in -ava here?
The ending -ava shows that costumar is conjugated in the Pretérito Imperfeito (the past tense used for habits and descriptions) for the "she" form (a minha avó). Costumar means "to be in the habit of", so in this past tense it translates perfectly to "used to".
Why is comprar left in its infinitive form instead of being conjugated?
When two verbs work together as a pair to express a single idea, only the first one gets conjugated. Since costumava is already conjugated to match a minha avó, the second verb comprar (to buy) stays in its basic dictionary form.
Why is the pronoun me attached to the end of comprar with a hyphen?
Why does the sentence start with A minha avó instead of just Minha avó?
In European Portuguese, you almost always put a definite article (o or a) before a possessive word like minha (my). Because avó is a feminine noun, it requires the feminine article a.
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