What this is about
Two pieces of everyday machinery: how to say you LIKE something, and how to say NO. Both are simpler than English — but gostar has one non-negotiable quirk: it never touches its object directly. You don't "like coffee" in Portuguese; you "like OF coffee".
gostar DE — always with de
| Eu gosto de café. | I like coffee — never "gosto café" |
| Gosto do Brasil. · Gosto da música. | de + o/a merge: do, da (see Contractions) |
| Gosto de dançar. | with a verb: gostar de + infinitive |
| Você gosta dele? | de + ele = dele — do you like him? |
Negation — três ways to say no
The basic rule: não goes directly BEFORE the verb. Nothing else moves:
| Eu não falo inglês. | I don't speak English |
| Ela não está em casa. | she is not home |
| Não gosto de cerveja. | works with gostar too, of course |
The Brazilian double no
Real spoken Brazilian loves wrapping the sentence in negation: Não falo, não. The second não just adds warmth/emphasis — it does NOT cancel the first (this is not English logic!). You'll also hear a bare final no: — Quer café? — Quero não. (Northeast). Understand it; the simple não-before-verb is all you need to produce.
Exceptions & details
1 · never / nothing pile up happily: Eu não como nada (I don't eat anything) — double negatives are correct in Portuguese.
2 · nunca can replace não before the verb: Eu nunca trabalho no domingo.
3 · Liking PEOPLE: Gosto muito dela = I really like her (friendly). Romance upgrades to amar.
Practise this chapter
8 pool questions plus generated ones — 20 fresh practice questions, reshuffled every visit, inside the grammar library.
Practise gostar de + negation — 20 questions →This chapter is taught in Lição 2 of the course — free, no account needed. Rumo is a complete Brazilian Portuguese course, A1 to B2; level A1 is free.