Questions
The simplest question system of any language on this site: change nothing.
Falas português. → Falas português?
No inversion, no auxiliary, no est-ce que. Intonation alone, and a question mark in writing.
Question words
| o quê / que | what |
| quem | who |
| onde | where |
| quando | when |
| porquê / porque | why |
| como | how |
| quanto | how much |
| qual / quais | which |
They go at the front, and everything else stays where it was: Onde está o livro?
porquê or porque
- Porquê? on its own, or at the end: Porquê? — Why?
- Porque at the start of a question in Portugal: Porque não vens?
- Porque in the answer: Porque estou cansado.
Brazil writes por que in the question and por quê at the end. The pronunciation is identical, and getting it wrong in writing is one of the commonest native mistakes.
The tag
Não é? covers every English tag question — isn't it, doesn't he, won't they. In speech it collapses to né?, which in Brazil ends roughly every second sentence.
É que
O que é que tu queres? — "What is it that you want?" The é que adds nothing and is everywhere in speech. Portuguese speakers use it to avoid inversion, which is available but sounds formal.
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