Word
Ela escondeu os guarda-joias debaixo dos sofás-camas.
Meaning
She hid the jewelry boxes under the sofa beds.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Ela escondeu os guarda-joias debaixo dos sofás-camas.
ela
she
debaixo de
under
esconder
to hide
o
him/it (m)
Questions & Answers about Ela escondeu os guarda-joias debaixo dos sofás-camas.
Why doesn't the word guarda-joias change in the plural?
Guarda-joias (jewelry box) is a compound word made of a verb (guarda) and a noun that is already plural (joias). In Portuguese, verbs inside compound nouns never take a plural 's'. Since joias is already plural, the word looks exactly the same in both forms. You just change the article: o guarda-joias becomes os guarda-joias.
Why do both parts of sofás-camas get an 's'?
Sofá-cama is made of two nouns (sofá and cama). When a compound word is formed by two nouns, both parts usually take the plural form. So, sofá becomes sofás and cama becomes camas, giving us sofás-camas. This is the standard rule, unlike verb-noun compounds where the verb stays singular.
Why use dos after debaixo instead of just os?
Does adding an 's' to sofá change the accent mark?