0.2.2 Pronouns & Origins Flashcards

Just like in English, Estados Unidos is plural, so it uses the plural article os.

Note that when talking about certain countries, we often put an article in Portuguese. You have to remember which countries are which “gender” or don’t have an article at all. In this case, we say o Brasil.

Note that Portugal typically does not have an article. So while Brazil would be o Brasil, Portugal is simply Portugal.

“American” (from the U.S.) = americano (m)

Use americano when referring to a man or when the gender is not specified. Portuguese speakers also often use norte-americano (“North American”).

Note: nationalities are not capitalized in Portuguese.

“American (from the U.S) “ = americana

Use americana to specify that a person is a female. Note it can also refer to things grammatically feminine, e.g.,uma casa americana = “an American house.”

In Portuguese, you can simply take the adjective for a nationality (e.g. “Portuguese” = português), and add an article in front of it to make it a noun (e.g. “a Portuguese [man]” = português).

Remember that in Portuguese, you can simply take the adjective for a nationality (e.g. “Portuguese” (f.) = portuguesa), and add an article in front of it to make it a noun (e.g. “a Portuguese [woman]” = uma portuguesa).

The article must always match the gender and quantity of people you are talking about. So two Portuguese women would be umas portuguesas.

e.g. “from Portugal” = de Portugal

da = de + a (f.)

Da is technically a contraction meaning “from the”, where the place is considered feminine and takes the article a (“the”). e.g., Ele é da Argentina. (“He is from [the] Argentina.”).

Most countries don’t take an article, and only a few countries use this article a, so da must be learned case by case.

do = de + o (m.)

Do is technically a contraction meaning “from the”, where the place is considered masculine and takes the article o (“the”), e.g., Ela é do Brasil. (“She is from [the] Brazil.”)

“from” = de

The word from shows origin or starting point. In Portuguese, it may appear as de, do, or da:

They may contract before vowels or with certain country names. e.g., de Israel = “from Israel”; do Brasil = “from Brazil”; da Argentina = “from Argentina.”

In Portuguese, de contracts to do or da only when the following noun takes a definite article (e.g., o Brasil → do Brasil, a Argentina → da Argentina); if there is no article, it remains de (e.g., Portugal → de Portugal).

“from the” = dos (de + os) (m.) (plural)

This contraction happens because saying de os is not natural in Portuguese.

Because os Estados Unidos (“the United States”) is masculine, the phrase “from the United States” becomes dos Estados Unidos. For example, because Maldivas (“Maldive”) is feminine “From the Maldives “ becomes das Maldivas.

English always capitalizes “I” (eu); however, in Portuguese, eu (“I”) is not capitalized unless it is the first word of a sentence.