Articles & Gender
Articles & Gender
Every Portuguese noun is masculine or feminine, a category English lost long ago — but the ending of the word is usually a reliable clue, which makes Portuguese gender fairly guessable from day one.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
The -o / -a pattern: gender you can usually predict
o livro (m.), a casa (f.)
the book, the house
Most Portuguese nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine — a pattern reliable enough to guess confidently for a large share of new vocabulary. It's not universal (a few common exceptions exist and simply need memorizing, like o dia — "the day", masculine despite ending in -a), but treat -o/-a as your default assumption and you'll be right most of the time.
Definite articles: o / a / os / as
o livro, os livros (m. sg./pl.) — a casa, as casas (f. sg./pl.)
the book, the books — the house, the houses
Portuguese "the" is a separate word placed before the noun, much like English. It has four forms depending on gender and number: o (masc. singular), os (masc. plural), a (fem. singular), as (fem. plural) — a small multiplication English's single "the" never needs. Always learn a noun together with its article — "o livro", never just "livro" — since the article is your main clue to the noun's gender.
Indefinite articles: um / uma / uns / umas
um livro (a book) — uma casa (a house)
a book — a house
The same um/uma you met as the number "one" doubles as the indefinite article "a/an" — exactly the historical relationship English "a" and "one" share, just still visibly connected in Portuguese. uns and umas ("some") are the rarely-needed plural forms.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- the book / the books
- English
- the house / the houses
- English
- the car / the cars
- English
- the table / the tables
- English
- the door
- English
- the window
- English
- the day
- English
- a book / a house