Breakdown of Elas beijam-se e conversam sobre a juventude.
e
and
ela
she
conversar
to chat
se
himself / herself / themselves
sobre
about, on (a topic)
a juventude
the youth
beijar
to kiss
Questions & Answers about Elas beijam-se e conversam sobre a juventude.
How do we know se means "each other" here and not "themselves"?
In Portuguese, plural reflexive pronouns like se (for they/you plural) and nos (for we) can be either reflexive (doing an action to themselves) or reciprocal (doing it to each other). We know beijam-se means "kiss each other" simply from context, as people don't usually kiss themselves. If it were ever ambiguous, you could add uma à outra (one to the other) to make the reciprocal meaning perfectly clear.
Why is there a hyphen in beijam-se?
The English translation says "their youth", but the Portuguese says a juventude. Why isn't there a possessive word like sua?
When the context makes it completely obvious who something belongs to, Portuguese often drops the possessive word (sua) and just uses the definite article (a). Because the women are talking about a stage of their own lives, using a juventude instead of a sua juventude is perfectly natural and sounds less repetitive.
Could we use falam de instead of conversam sobre?
Yes, you could say falam sobre or falam da juventude. However, conversar emphasizes a two-way conversation or chat, which beautifully matches the reciprocal idea of the women interacting with each other.
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