Pronunciation key

– ôy, ãDRÉ, TUdu bõ? * In informal language (or even in the not too

– TUdu b~ei, i vôCÊ? formal one) the first syllable of the verb “estar”

– êw tô b~ei. * is not pronounced. You may not hear the final

“u” of the verbs ending in “ou”, too.

Literal translation

– Hi, André, (is) everything good?

– Everything well, and you?

– I’m fine.

Proper translation

– Hi, André, how are you?

– Fine, and you?

– I’m fine.

Another ways of greeting (either formal or informal, informal only):

Olá (“hello”, almost never used)

Alô (“hello”, when answering to the phone)

Bom dia (meaning “good day”, actually used as “good morning, until 12:00 AM)

Boa tarde (“good afternoon”, used from 12:00 AM to 6:00 PM)

Boa noite (“good night”, both when arriving and when leaving; there’s no “good evening)

E aí? (literally “and there?”, used among teenagers, working as “how are you”?)

Como vai? (“how are you going?”, working as “how are you?”. People don’t say “como está você”, the literal translation for “how are you?”)

Grammar

Articles

Portuguese has both kinds of articles: artigo definido (definite article) and artigo indefinido (indefinite article).The article agrees with the noun in gender and number.

Definite Articles

o – masculine singular o carro (the car); o menino (the boy)

a – feminine singular a casa (the house); a menina (the girl)

os – masculine plural os carros (the cars) ; os meninos (the boys)

as – feminine plural as casas (the houses) ; as meninas (the girls)

Indefinite Articles

um – masculine singular um carro (a car); um menino (a boy)

uma – feminine singular uma casa (a house; uma menina (a girl)

uns – masculine plural uns carros (some cars); uns meninos

umas – feminine plural umas casas (some houses); umas meninas

Notice that the Portuguese indefinite plural articles can be translated as the English word “some”.

Pay attention to the pronunciation of the word “uma”. In this case, despite being between two vowels, the consonant “m” is not pronounced. This also applied for its derivated forms: umas, nenhuma, alguma. It’s an exception in the language, but can be easily understood: the general rule for making the feminine of a word is just to add an a to it. Since the m is not pronounced in the masculine word, it shouldn’t in the feminine, too, because it’s just an a that is being added, no other change.

The articles will be useful for teaching the next lesson, gender of the words.

Lesson 05 Main Page Course Index Lesson 07