At the restaurant

The third entry is a carta de vinhos, and it is the place to learn how Portuguese joins two nouns, because five entries on this page are built the same way. English needs nothing between them. It puts the modifier first and the head second and stops there: « wine list », « table cloth », « side dish », « main course ». Portuguese cannot do that. The head comes first and the second noun hangs behind it on de, so the order is reversed as well — a carta de vinhos, a toalha de mesa, o empregado de mesa. Then comes the part worth learning by heart, because English has no counterpart for it. A bare de says what kind of thing this is; de merged with the article, do or da, points at one particular thing. A carta de vinhos is the wine sort of list, the same list in any restaurant; a ementa do dia, a sobremesa da casa and o ponto da carne name this day, this house and that piece of meat. Choosing wrongly is not a mistake anybody hears. It is a different thing being talked about.