Adjectives

To identify an adjective, just check whether the word gives you more information about a noun. Adjectives always relate to nouns (sometimes indirectly – via a pronoun), and usually describe them in some way – e.g. to denote size/colour/texture/quality/etc. Some examples of adjectives: brown; soft; musical; large; expensive; happy.

In English, adjectives normally appear before the noun they describe (e.g., ‘the black shoes’, ‘a small table’). In Portuguese however, (as with other Latin-based languages) the adjective appears after the noun (e.g., ‘os sapatos pretos’, ‘uma mesa pequena’). This takes a bit of getting used to, but is actually more logical, especially when using several adjectives in a row, because you know what noun is being described up-front, whereas in English you have to wait for the sentence to finish before you know what is being spoken about.

Adjectives usually have a gender, and this must ‘agree’ with the gender of the noun being described. So a small house is ‘uma casa pequena’ but a small book is ‘um livro pequeno’.