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According to Sonia-Portuguese.com, section 11 (Question Words), deste, desse, daquele all mean "this". What is the difference between these?!?

Você gosta desta blusa? = Do you like this blouse?

Eu gosto desse café. = I like this coffee.

Eu gosto daqueles sapatos. = I like those shoes.

I don't understand how to distinguish between these because the words seem interchangeable. Extremely confused right now. Thank you in advance!

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Index Hacker
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    Related: Qual a diferença de “esse”, “este” e “aquele”? – Jorge B. Feb 26 '16 at 17:33
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    The "Remarks" in Section 9 on that same page appears to explain everything in your question. Could you [edit] your question to explain what is really confusing you, in light of that explanation? Otherwise you're asking for answers that say the same thing, and thus probably wouldn't address your real confusion? – Dan Getz Feb 26 '16 at 19:58
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    Whoops, I see now, that table in section 11 looks like one big typo. I see how that could be confusing. – Dan Getz Feb 26 '16 at 21:42
  • This also super confusing on Duolingo how do you differentiate in written language that the object is far from both the first and second persons. – user12591 Nov 02 '22 at 12:18
  • You should open a question, we'll be glad to clarify and explain any doubts you have. The other question linked by Jacinto explains perfectly the "farness" of the objects related to este/esse/aquele: https://portuguese.stackexchange.com/questions/2/qual-a-diferen%C3%A7a-de-esse-este-e-aquele – ANeves Nov 02 '22 at 12:32

2 Answers2

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The table and first example in section 11 are misleading, but the remarks in section 9 are correct and address your question: roughly speaking, deste means of this, not just this; and desse and daquele mean of that. The first thing to know is these words are contractions of the preposition de with a pronoun:

deste = de + este [of this (near the speaker)]

desse = de + esse [of that (near the person you’re speaking to)]

daquele = de + aquele [of that (over there)]

The differences among este, esse, and aquele are addressed at length in this question. I'll focus on the role of the preposition de. The reason it looks as though deste means this in some sentences is that some Portuguese verbs need the preposition de whereas the English equivalents do not need any preposition. For instance gostar de (something) is equivalent to like (something):

Eu gosto de vinho = I like wine

Este vinho é bom = this wine is good

Eu gosto deste vinho = I like this wine

In the last example it looks as though deste means this, but it does not: it means of this, except the verb like does not take any preposition, whereas gostar takes de. The site’s second example is correct: to ask for someone’s opinion on something you can use think of (something) and achar de (something):

O que voçê acha deste vinho? = what do you think of this wine?

Acho que este vinho é muito bom = I think this wine is very good

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That is a mistranslation. Gosto desse café should have been translated to I like that coffee.

Of course, now you have esse and aquele both mapping to that. The difference is that esse refers something close to the person you're talking to, while aquele refers to something distant from both participants. If the use is not related to location and is instead anaphoric, you would generally use esse, tough there are many nuances there.

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