Learn "How much is this?" in addition to some more Portuguese phrases you'll find useful for shopping
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Now it’s time for some useful Survival Phrases for when you have time to shop in Portuguese stores. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| The first thing you say to a shop clerk is com licença, which is the apology phrase that we learned in our previous lessons. After that, you will want to ask: “How much is it? |
| In Portuguese, we say |
| Quanto é? |
| Let’s break that down: |
| (slow) Quan-to é? |
| Once more: |
| Quanto é? |
| In this question, quanto means “how much”. |
| (slow) quan-to |
| quanto |
| é is translated as "is” |
| Let’s hear this phrase again. |
| Quanto é? |
| You can also use this sentence to ask the price: |
| “How much does this cost?” |
| Quanto custa? |
| Let’s break the first question down: |
| (slow) Quan-to cus-ta? |
| Once more: |
| Quanto custa? |
| Quanto means “how much.” |
| Custa is a present form of the verb that means “to cost” |
| (slow) Cus-ta. |
| Custa. |
| In Portuguese, you don't need to say "this" or "that" for this question. It is implied. |
| Let’s hear it one more time: |
| (slow) Quan-to cus-ta? |
| Once more: |
| Quanto custa? |
| ・ |
| Imagine that you find a clothing stand in a local market and want to buy a shirt. To attract their attention, say to the stall-keeper com licença, then ask how much the shirt costs. The question will sound like this: |
| Com licença, quanto custa esta camisa? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Com li-cen-ça, quan-to cus-ta es-ta ca-mi-sa? |
| And again at natural speed: |
| Com licença, quanto custa esta camisa? |
| After com licença we have quanto, which means “how much”. |
| Next comes the word custa, a present form of the verb “to cost”. |
| (slow) Cus-ta. |
| Custa. |
| After that we have esta, the word for “this” in the feminine form |
| (slow) es-ta. |
| Esta. |
| The last word is camisa, which is “shirt” in English. |
| (slow) ca-mi-sa. |
| Camisa. |
| The whole question is |
| Com licença, quanto custa esta camisa? |
| Camisa is a feminine noun, and that’s why we need to use the feminine form of the word “this”, esta. If the thing you want to buy is masculine, replace the word esta with este. |
| (slow) Es-te. |
| Este. |
| ・ |
| There’s another sentence that’s useful when you’re asking prices. Let’s imagine you want to know the price of a pair of shoes. You’ll ask Qual é o preço deste sapato? which means “What is the price of these shoes?”. |
| (slow) Qual é o pre-ço des-te sa-pa-to? |
| Qual é o pre-ço des-te sa-pa-to? |
| Qual means “what” |
| (slow) qual |
| qual |
| The next word, é, as we saw before, means “is” |
| o preço is translated as “the price” |
| (slow) o pre-ço |
| o preço |
| deste means “of this” |
| (slow) des-te |
| deste |
| And sapato means “shoe”. |
| (slow) sa-pa-to |
| sapato |
| Notice that sapato is a masculine noun, that’s why we used deste, a contraction of the preposition de and este, instead of esta. |
| Qual é o pre-ço des-te sa-pa-to? |
Comments
Hide