Nouns & gender
Two genders, and the ending usually tells you which.
- -o → masculine: o livro, o carro, o dedo
- -a → feminine: a casa, a mesa, a água
- -ção, -dade, -gem → feminine, always: a nação, a cidade, a viagem
- -ma from Greek → masculine: o problema, o sistema, o clima
The traps
O problema and o dia look feminine and are not. A mão looks masculine and is not — it is feminine, and so is a tribo.
Some words change meaning with gender:
| masculine | feminine |
|---|---|
| o capital — the money | a capital — the city |
| o cura — the priest | a cura — the cure |
| o guia — the guide (person) | a guia — the guidebook |
Nouns that are people
Most take both forms: o professor / a professora, o aluno / a aluna. Some are invariable and the article does the work: o estudante / a estudante, o dentista / a dentista.
The diminutive
Portuguese adds -inho / -inha to almost anything, and it does far more than shrink. Um cafezinho is not a small coffee, it is a friendly one. Um bocadinho is a polite little bit. Devagarinho means slow down, gently. It is one of the warmest features of the language, and one of the hardest to translate.
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