Questions & Answers about Ferve a água para o chá.
The translation is "Boil", which is a command. Why is the verb form ferve?
Ferve is the informal command (imperative) for tu (you) of the verb ferver (to boil). A handy rule in Portuguese is that affirmative tu commands are exactly the same as the "he/she/it" form in the regular present tense. If you were giving this instruction formally using você, it would change to ferva.
If I wanted to tell someone "Don't boil the water," would I just say "Não ferve"?
No, you would say Não fervas. Negative commands don't use the same simple present tense trick. Instead, they use a different verb form (the present subjunctive). So, "boil" is ferve, but "don't boil" is não fervas (informal) or não ferva (formal).
In English, "boil" means both making something boil and a liquid bubbling on its own. Is ferver used both ways too?
Yes! Just like in English, ferver works whether you are making something boil (like in this sentence) or the liquid is doing it on its own, such as in A água já ferve (The water is already boiling).
Do the preposition para and the article o combine into a single word here?
In formal writing, they stay separate: para o. However, in spoken European Portuguese, native speakers almost always blend them together to sound like pró. You will even see native speakers write it informally as pro or p'ro in casual text messages.
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