Quantities and prices in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A1

Quantities and prices in Brazilian Portuguese

At a counter in Brazil, order a drink and find out its price. Count the servings, then ask Quanto custa? and listen for Custa followed by the amount. The prices here are examples for this conversation.

Words for one counter visit

Copo means a drinking glass and água means water; café here means one serving of coffee, rather than coffee beans. Custar means to cost, and custa is the form used in this exchange. Real is Brazil's currency unit, written R$; its plural is reais. Recall um (one), dois (two), quatro (four), cinco (five), dez (ten) and por favor (please). Listen to the cards, especially café and its plural cafés in the next examples.

Count the serving

Recall Quero água, por favor: I want water, please; quero means I want. To specify one glass, say Um copo de água, por favor: a glass of water, please. Here um counts the glass and de joins the container to its contents, like of; água stays singular. For coffee, um café is one serving and dois cafés is two servings, just as English can use two coffees at a counter. Cafés keeps the accent and adds a final -s, which is heard as well as written; listen to the example. The short requests with por favor work without quero.

quantidade + bebida ou recipiente, por favor

Ask and understand the price

Quanto asks how much; Quanto custa? means How much does it cost? when the item or order is already understood. Portuguese needs no extra word like English does in this question. Answer with Custa and the amount: Custa quatro reais means It costs four reais; the other examples give five and ten. Custa names the price of the understood item or order here, even when the amount is more than one real; reais is the plural currency word. We are practising custa in this setting, not the verb's full set of forms.

Custa número reais

Water first, then two coffees

A is the customer and B serves at the counter. Aqui está means Here you are, said while handing over the glass; aqui means here and está presents the thing being handed over. The water costs four reais, then the customer also orders two coffees, whose total price is ten reais. In the last reply, Custa gives the price of that order as a whole. Listen once for the quantities and once for the prices.

Try another counter, then check

At another counter, ask for one glass of water politely, then ask its price. The server tells you it costs five reais: say that answer too. Try before reading the three model lines below, then check and listen. To sum up: um copo de água names one glass and its contents, while dois cafés counts two servings. Ask Quanto custa? and answer Custa + amount + reais for the prices practised here.

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