The feeling of a stable state of a person is based on three main components: home, work and a loved one. So let’s talk about it in Portuguese while learning new grammar rules and expanding our vocabulary.
Merging prepositions
Even at the very beginning of learning the Portuguese language, we immediately learn that the prepositions “de” and “em” tend to merge with definite and indefinite articles.
Cases of merging the prepositions “de” and “em” with definite articles: “Eu sou do Porto.” (I’m from Porto.) or “Eu estou no cinema.” (I’m at the cinema.), but with indefinite articles:
“Ele é duma aldeia pequena.” (He is the name of a small village.) or “Ela mora numa casa grande.” (She lives in a big house.)
In addition, the prepositions “de” and “em” merge with demonstrative pronouns:
Nós somos desta cidade. (We are from this city.)
Elas estão neste restaurante. (They are in this restaurant.)
These prepositions also merge with the demonstrative pronouns “isto, isso, aquilo“: Eu falo disto. (I talk about this.) and with adverbs of place: Não sou daqui. (I’m not from here.)
Verbs ending in “-ar”
To cover today’s topic, we need new verbs: gostar (to like), estudar (to study), trabalhar (to work) and viajar (to travel). All of them are united by one feature – they have the ending “-ar” and they are all correct. There is one general conjugation rule for verbs of this type.
We remove the “-ar” ending and add the ending from the table.
| The verbs with ending “-ar” | |
|---|---|
| Eu | -o |
| Tu | -as |
| Ele, ela, você | -a |
| Nós | -amos |
| Eles, elas, vocês | -ão |
Tu trabalhas numa empresa grande. (You work for a big company.)
Nós estudamos na universidade. (We study at the university.)
With the knowledge of this rule, you can use almost any verb with the “-ar” ending. However, there are exceptions, and one of them you have already met before is the verb “estar” (to be). There are few such irregular verbs and we study them throughout the course.
Muito/pouco
You can work, study, even relax a little, moderately or a lot. Today we will look at how to talk about extremes. Even if you have never learned Portuguese, but have heard Portuguese, you have definitely heard and remembered the popular word “muito” (a lot). Its antonym is “pouco” (few), but the average value is “bastante” (enough).
Eu estudo muito e a minha mãe trabalha pouco. (I study a lot and my mother doesn’t work much.)
Eu gosto muito de viajar. (I like to travel a lot.)
In the examples we see that adverbs of measure refer to the verb. In this case, they have only one original form. Everything changes if we are talking about the number of things, that is, the adverb of measure refers to a noun. That is, these adverbs will change their endings depending on the gender and number of the object to which they refer.
Eu tenho poucas moedas. (I have few coins.)
Agree, without this detail, the information that you study or work, or that you have friends is not so informative.
Profession
We can say that the profession is our second nationality. She can tell a lot about us. For example, how sociable we are, what kind of logical thinking we have, how organized we are and how many hours in a row we can work. For example, a teacher should be able to communicate with people. Some doctors work 24 hours a day, which indicates high efficiency, and an engineer thinks well and finds a practical solution in any situation.
Professions, like nationalities, change by gender and number. If the profession in the male version ends with “-o“, then in the female version the ending will be “-a“, and for the plural the letter “-s” is added: medico/os – medica/as (doctor).
There are professions that in male performance end with the letter “-r“, then for a woman of this profession we again add the ending “-a“: professor – professora (teacher).
And also, there are professions of exception, for example “ator” (actor) and “atriz” (actress). The plural in this case will be “-es” after the last consonant, and traditionally “-s” after the vowel.
Question answer
The question of profession is as simple as the question of nationality or name. “Qual é …”, and instead of the ellipsis, you can substitute any word that interests you. In this case, it’s work:
Qual é a sua profissão? (What is your profession?)
This question can be answered in different ways. For example:
A minha profissão é engenheiro. (My profession is an engineer.)
Sou advogado. (I am a lawyer.)
Word order
Word order in Portuguese is not as strict as in some other languages, such as English. However, there are some rules. For example, the adjective must come after the noun, not before it: casa bonita, nome completo. Ordinal numbers, on the contrary, go before the verb and nothing else: segundo andar, terceira vez, último nome.
The words “muito, pouco, bastante” are paired with a verb after it, and paired with an adjective before it:
Trabalhamos muito. Estamos cansados. (We work hard. We are tired.)
O comportamento dele é muito ridículo. (His behavior is very ridiculous.)
The address
Any address contains the name of the country, city, street, house number and apartment or office number. In Portugal, there are some features that you need to remember in order to better navigate.
Most often, houses in Portugal are small, and there are 2-3 apartments / offices on the floor. In order not to assign a number to each apartment, in Portugal they name the floor, and then choose where exactly the apartment is located: on the right, on the left, or straight ahead.
In addition, the floor count starts from the basement – Rés do chão, which is shortly written as R/C. But the direction is indicated as follows: direito – dto; esquerdo – esq. That is, the full address may look like this: rua da Paz 7, 4 Dto, 2500-165 Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.
É que
Surely you have often seen or heard how the Portuguese insert an additional phrase “é que” into interrogative sentences. It does not carry a special semantic.
Onde é que tu trabalhas? (Where do you work?)
Qual é que a tua morada? (What is your address?)
It is not necessary to use it in speech, but knowing that it exists is important in order not to get confused.
Conclusion
Now you can describe your occupation, its quantity and give the address where you do it. This is not a dry grammar with formulas, as in mathematics. This is the study of the basics of the language with instant practical application.
