A1 (Beginner)Lesson 8: Travel Prep
Polite requests, prices, and payment phrases cover food, shopping, and everyday purchases in Brazil. Forms like queria..., quanto custa...?, and aceita cartão? appear constantly in cafés, restaurants, stores, and markets.
Soften requests with queria… (Queria um café) — politer than quero
Ask the price with quanto custa…? (or quanto é? for the whole bill)
Pay with a conta, aceita cartão? and vou pagar em dinheiro
Core service verbs: querer, poder, custar, comprar, pagar
Scene words to recognize: cardápio, garçom, caixa, troco, preço
The same phrases work in restaurants, cafés, shops and markets — and, more and more, with Pix
Ordering and paying are where a trip actually happens — coffee, water, lunch, sunscreen, the bill. Ask the price the right way and the feira vendor might round it down for you; freeze up and you're left pointing at a pastel with a fistful of reais, hoping for the best. A handful of fixed phrases turns every counter, café and market stall from a tiny ordeal into a thirty-second exchange.
queria... | pode trazer...? | quanto custa...? | aceita cartão? | vou pagar em dinheiro / com cartão
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You rarely need a full sentence to order, shop and pay — just a few memorized openers with the thing you want stuck on the end.
| Phrase | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Queria… | softens a request | Queria uma água, por favor. |
| Pode + verb? | asks someone to do something | Pode trazer o cardápio? |
| Quanto custa…? | asks the price | Quanto custa o salgado? |
| Aceita…? | checks a payment method | Aceita cartão? |
| Vou pagar em/com… | says how you'll pay | Vou pagar com cartão. |
Queria ver o cardápio e um café com leite. (I'd like to see the menu and a coffee with milk.)
Pode trazer a conta para a mesa, por favor? (Could you bring the bill to the table, please?)
Quanto custa o prato do dia? (How much is the dish of the day?)
Tem mesa para dois perto da janela? (Is there a table for two near the window?)
Quero comprar água e protetor solar. (I want to buy water and sunscreen.)
Quanto custa a garrafa de água? (How much is the bottle of water?)
Onde fica o caixa da loja? (Where is the shop's checkout?)
Tem troco para cinquenta reais? (Do you have change for fifty reais?)
Both are fine, but queria sounds softer and more polite at a counter, while quero can come across as a little blunt. When in doubt, go with queria.
Translating English's "Can I have…?" word for word gives Posso ter…?. Brazilians will understand you, but it sounds off — reach for Queria… or Pode trazer…? instead.
For a restaurant bill, the word is a conta. Nota usually means a school grade (or a receipt), so it's a confusing first pick for "the check".
Caixa is both the cashier and the checkout/till, so Onde fica o caixa? covers both. It also plainly means "box", but at a shop the payment sense is obvious.
These days the most Brazilian way to pay isn't cash or card — it's Pix, the Central Bank's free instant-transfer system launched in November 2020. It caught on so fast that by 2023 Brazilians were making around 42 billion Pix transfers a year — more than credit cards, debit cards, boleto, TED, DOC and cheques combined. So don't be surprised when a beach vendor answers your Aceita cartão? with a cheerful Aceita Pix? and points at a QR code.
Sources: Agência Brasil, Banco Central do Brasil
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