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Verb 'ser'/Verbo "ser"

You learned, at the last lesson, that there were two copula verbs in Portuguese. You've already learned the first one, "estar". Now it is time to learn the other one, ser, which denotes a permament situation or condition. It is not a regular verb, and is conjugated, in present indicative, as follows:

Person	Portuguese	English
1. s.	eu sou	I am
2. s.	tu és	you are
3. s.	ele/ela é	he/she/it is
1. p.	nós somos	we are
2. p.	vós sois	you all are
3. p.	eles/elas são	they are

See some examples:
To ilustrate the difference between "ser" and "estar", compare the next two phrases:
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Possessive pronouns/Pronomes possessivos

The possessive pronouns (pronomes possessivos) in Portuguese are the same than the possessive adjectives. As adjectives, they agree in gender and number with the possessed thing. They are:

Possessive pronouns and adjectives
Portuguese				English
Masculine		Feminine		Adjective	Pronoun
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
meu	meus	minha	minhas	my	mine
teu	teus	tua	tuas	your	yours
seu	seus	sua	suas	his, her, its	his, hers, its
nosso	nossos	nossa	nossas	our	ours
vosso	vossos	vossa	vossas	your	yours
seu	seus	sua	suas	their	theirs

Just like adjectives and nouns, the plural forms are made adding -s.


The inflection patterns of "teu" (compare with "tu") and "seu" are the alike.



The pronouns "vosso" (compare with "vós") and "nosso" (compare with "nós") are inflected just like adjectives.



As "você" and "vocês" are address pronouns, they behave as third person pronouns. So, the possessive forms of them are "seu"-words. This is a important and confuse point, as you saw that "seu" can mean either "your(s)", "his", "her(s)", "its" and "their(s)". So instead of using "seu" (which have that lot of meanings) one changes it for:

Portuguese	English
dele	of him
dela	of her
deles	of them (masculine)
delas	of them (feminine)
de vocês	of you all

Those are all contractions of the preposition "de" and the personal pronouns "ele", "ela", "eles", "elas". The same rule applies for "vocês" (but no contraction can be made between "de" and "vocês"). So, the possessive form used is "de vocês" ("of you").


At everyday language, "seu" is used only as possessive form of "você", making things much easier.

But some even do not use "seu" for "você", because of the confuse meanings it may have. Those use "teu" instead. It is grammatically wrong because "teu" is the possessive form of "tu". Grammatically, one must use the pronoun alongside with its respective possessive form: "tu" with "teu" and "você" with "seu".

Concluding, the possessive pronouns are:

Possessive pronouns and adjectives (informal speech)
colspan="4" |Portuguese	English
Masculine		Feminine
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
meu	meus	minha	minhas	my, mine
teu	teus	tua	tuas	your, yours (using "tu")
seu	seus	sua	suas	your, yours (using "você")
dele				of him, of it
dela				of her, of it
nosso	nossos	nossa	nossas	our, ours
de vocês				your, yours
deles				of them (masculine)
delas				of them (feminine)

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Common greetings, thanks and goodbyes/Cumprimentos, agradecimentos e despedidas comuns

Portuguese greetings ("cumprimentos") and goodbyes ("despedidas") are quite simple. The most usual ones among them are:

Common greetings
Portuguese	English	Notes
oi, olá	hello, hi
bom dia	good morning	(lit. "good day") it is spoken only at morning
boa tarde	good afternoon
boa noite	good evening
Common goodbyes
Portuguese	English	Notes
tchau	bye
tchau-tchau	bye-bye	it is considered quite childish by some.
até (a próxima vez)	see you	(lit. "until the next time")
boa noite	good night

The thanks are a very simple point, but need some explanation. Many time ago, the common way of thanking someone was saying "I'm obligated to you". As portuguese adjectives agree in gender with the nouns (or pronouns) they are connected to, the adjective "obligated" ("obrigado") depends on the gender of the speaker.

Gender of the speaker	Singular	Plural
Masculine	eu estou obrigado a você/ti	nós estamos obrigados a vocês/vós
Feminine	eu estou obrigada a você/ti	nós estamos obrigadas a vocês/vós

Nowadays, that way of spaking is absolutely unusual, as one just says the word "obligated". So, the "thank you" words in Portuguese are:

Gender of the speaker	Singular	Plural
Masculine	obrigado	obrigados
Feminine	obrigada	obrigadas

Some actually say "muito obrigado" insted of "obrigado" ("muito" means "very").


Orally, there is also a reduced form of "obrigado":


As usually a single person thanks to another, the forms "obrigados" and "obrigadas" may sound weird to a native speaker. Actually, one prefers saying "obrigado, por nós" ("I thank you, for us all") than "obrigados" ("we thank you"). The correct answer to a "thank-you" ("you are welcome" in English) is "de nada" (lit. "of nothing").

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Days of the Week and Months/ Dias da semana e meses

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Days of the week/Dias da semana

During the medieval age, most of the names of the days of the week came from Classical Latin roots, just like the Spanish ones. But this was changed to a easier way, naming it after fairs (naming system used in Ecclesiastical Latin). So, except for Sunday and Saturday, the days of the week are formed by ordinal numbers plus the Portuguese word for "fair":

Portuguese			English
Word	Latin root	Literal meaning	Word
(o) domingo	dies dominicu	"Lord's day"	(the) Sunday
(a) segunda-feira	secunda feria	"second fair"	(the) Monday
(a) terça-feira	tertia feria	"third fair"	(the) Tuesday
(a) quarta-feira	quarta feria	"fourth fair"	(the) Wednesday
(a) quinta-feira	quinta feria	"fifth fair"	(the) Thursday
(a) sexta-feira	sexta feria	"sixth fair"	(the) Friday
(o) sábado	sabbatum	"shabat day"	(the) Saturday

For time expressions, the copula verb used is "ser".
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Months/Meses

English	Portuguese
January	Janeiro
February	Fevereiro
March	Março
April	Abril
May	Maio
June	Junho
July	Julho
August	Agosto
September	Setembro
October	Outubro
November	Novembro
December	Dezembro

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Introduction to verbs/Introdução a verbos

The infinitive of all verbs in Portuguese language end in -r. The vowel before the -r is called the stem vowel, and it rules the conjugation of the verb. The root is what comes before the stem vowel. There are three stem vowels, that divides the verbs in three groups:

• first conjugation ("primeira conjugação"): infinitive ends in -ar.
• second conjugation ("segunda conjugação"): infinitive ends in -er.
• third conjugation ("terceira conjugação"): infinitive ends in -ir.

Also, there are some infinitives that end in -or. Those are all derivate forms of the verb "pôr", ("to put") that is an irregular verb. All its derivates follow "pôr"'s conjugation pattern. This verb comes from the old Portuguese "poer" (Latin "ponere"), so all verbs in -or are considered to be irregular verbs of the second conjugation.

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Dialogue/Diálogo

Vocabulary
Word	Translation	Notes
começar	start
de	of
de qualquer jeito	anyway	lit. of any way
desculpe	sorry
(o) dia	(the) day	masculine noun (though ends in -a)
é mesmo!	really!
hoje	today
não	no	interjection, never used with nouns.
o que	what, what thing
por favor	please	lit. for favour
que	what, which
que dia é hoje?	what day is it?	lit. what day is today?
rápido	quick
saber	to know
segunda-feira	Monday	lit. second fair
sobre	about

For learning Portuguese Category Uncategorized Level Unspecified Second language English Created Apr 16, 2008 16:42 Views 936 Share:

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