Nouns and Articles

A noun is an identifier, so just check whether the word identifies what something or someone is. The thing identified by a noun can be tangible – like ‘chair’, ‘door’, ‘car’, ‘book’; or it can be abstract – like ‘thought’, ‘desire’, ‘mystery’, ‘effort’.

Sometimes, an identifier can consist of more than one word (eg. ‘beer bottle’, ‘car door’), in which case the group of words that make up the identifier is known as a ‘noun phrase’.

Nouns can always be preceded by the definite or indefinite article (i.e. the word ‘the’ or ‘a(n)’ or ‘some’), so if it does not make sense to use ‘the’ or ‘a’ before the word, it is likely not a noun. For example, take the word ‘went’ – it does not make sense to say ‘the went’, so ‘went’ is not a noun. Whereas, ‘the concept’ does make sense, so ‘concept’ is a noun.

Proper nouns are similar in that they act as identifiers, it's just that they define a particular instance of a noun – i.e. names (e.g., Fred, Emily, Tuesday, London). Proper nouns always start with a capital letter in English so they are usually easy to identify.

In Portuguese, nouns are either masculine or feminine. Unless you have studied another language before, this may seem a little odd because in English we only apply gender to people or animals unless speaking rhetorically.

The distinction as to which nouns are masculine and which are feminine is fairly arbitrary, but as a general rule, if the word ends with ‘a’ or ‘ção’ (equivalent to the English ending ‘tion’) or ‘ade’ or ‘gem’, it is usually feminine, and if it ends with an ‘o’, or ‘l’, or ‘r’ or ‘á’ (a-acute), it is usually masculine. Other endings can be masculine or feminine, and you just have to learn them as you come across them.

So what? Well, definite and indefinite articles, as well as adjectives have to ‘agree’ with the noun to which they relate – both in terms of gender, and plurality. What does this mean in practice? There are 4 (count 'em!) Portuguese words for ‘the’. The one you use depends on whether the noun is masculine or feminine, and whether you are referring to one or more than one item.

A similar rule applies to the indefinite article:

Take for example, the word ‘livro’ which means ‘book’. This is a masculine noun, so when referring to one particular book (‘the book’), you would say ‘o livro’, whereas to refer to a few books (‘some books’), you would say ‘uns livros’. To say ‘the houses’, which is feminine, would be ‘as casas’.

The best way to learn which nouns are masculine and which are feminine is to learn the word along with the definite or indefinite article. There's no time like the present, so here are some nouns for you to learn: