Ordering a coffee Part 2 (Advanced): Options such as type of milk, depending on dietary preferences or allergies.

💬 sem means "without" and builds lots of dietary labels: sem glúten "gluten-free", sem açúcar "sugar-free".

💬 de soja and de aveia leave out leite because it's understood. Portuguese often drops a repeated noun this way.

💬 ão is nasal, like "now" said through the nose: (nowng).

💬 Putting the food first, Soja não posso, sets it up as the topic: "soy, I can't". Swap it out for other foods: Glúten não posso.

💬 A woman says sou alérgica. The ending changes with the speaker, so a woman also says sou celíaca.

💬 Sabe here is the polite "you know", the same form as "he/she knows". Using it without você keeps the question courteous rather than blunt.

🇵🇹 Staff often answer allergy questions cautiously like this. It's a hedge rather than a refusal, so it's fine to ask to see the packaging.

💬 Words ending in -ção or -ância are almost always feminine and take uma. One example is uma alergia "an allergy".

💬 arriscava is literally "I was risking", but in everyday Portuguese this form often means "I would". It's how people give friendly advice: Eu não comia "I wouldn't eat it".

🇵🇹 Saying celíaco lands better than just "no gluten", because staff take it as a medical need rather than a preference.

💬 Pois is a very Portuguese filler meaning "right" or "yeah, exactly". It shows you agree with what was just said.

💬 Taken word by word it looks like "if it fits", but as a fixed pair it simply means "maybe". It never changes shape.

🇵🇹 This is the everyday Portuguese way to say "maybe". You'll hear it far more than talvez, and it softens a suggestion so it doesn't sound like a correction.

💬 se calhar "maybe" is the everyday European Portuguese way to say perhaps, more common than talvez.

💬 descansado literally means "rested". Said to a woman it becomes Fique descansada.

💬 há means "there is" or "there are" and never changes form. For example, Há leite de aveia? means "Is there oat milk?"

💬 Portuguese often keeps a "the" before foods where English drops it.

💬 Ainda bem literally reads "still well", but it means "thank goodness" or "good". It's a fixed reaction to good news.

💬 Men say obrigado and women say obrigada, whoever they're thanking. After por the verb stays in its basic form: obrigado por esperar "thanks for waiting".

💬 Prices take São "they are", not É, because the amount counts as plural. The word euros is often dropped from the cents part.

🇵🇹 This is the standard reply when staff ask Mais alguma coisa? "Anything else?" at the counter, often followed by Quanto é? "How much is it?"

🇵🇹 Said when handing over money or receiving your coffee. It works both ways, for customer and server alike.

💬 In Portugal, se attaches after the verb with a hyphen: sentar-se, not se sentar as in Brazil. Same with levantar-se "to get up".

💬 lho is lhe "to you" and o "it" squeezed into one word. The same thing happens with lha when the thing is feminine, like a bica "the espresso": levo-lha.

🇵🇹 In many Portuguese cafés you order at the counter, and staff bring it over if you sit. Table service can sometimes cost a little more than drinking standing at the balcão "counter".

💬 The ending follows the speaker, not the listener. Men say obrigado and women say obrigada.

💬 simpática ends in -a because the person being thanked is a woman. Say é muito simpático to a man.

💬 obrigado matches the speaker, not the listener, so a woman says obrigada. Here a man is thanking a woman, so it's obrigado but simpática.