Portuguese Basics: Lesson 8

Let’s talk about describing things.

The word for this in Portuguese is este.

How would you say:

?This sir doesn’t have time.|Este senhor não tem tempo.

What about:

?This time is good.|Este tempo é bom.

And:

?I have this money.|Eu tenho este dinheiro.

The word este is masculine.

Actually, the word este is a weird word because it ends with e and still is masculine. Usually describing words (pronouns, adjectives) that end with e work the same for both genders but este is an exception. It should be esto instead of este if it were totally regular but I guess este sounds better. Anyway.

Knowing that it should be esto for the masculine, can you guess the feminine word for this?

The feminine word for this|Esta

Now, say:

?This lady is good.|Esta senhora é boa.

?This word|Esta palavra

Alright. Now, Portuguese and English are similar in a lot of words. For example:

The Portuguese word for interesting is interessante.

It ends with e and as I have already told you:

Adjectives (i.e. words that describe things) that end with e work for both masculine and feminine words.

So, how would you say:

?This word is interesting.|Esta palavra é interessante.

What about:

?This time is interesting.|Este tempo é interessante.

Now, if you wanted to say interesting word or interesting time you would actually switch these and say word interesting or time interesting. This happens all the time in Portuguese. Try it:

?An interesting time|Um tempo interessante

?An interesting word|Uma palavra interessante

Knowing that interesting is interessante, could you try to guess the Portuguese word for important:

?Important.|Importante.

Say:

?It is very important.|É muito importante.

?It is very interesting but not very important.|É muito interessante mas não é muito importante.

You can even say:

?The interesting word is important.|A palavra interessante é importante.

So, here is how describing things works. We are going to expand this knowledge now.

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