Lesson 2 - Basic grammar

Olá, pessoal! (Hi, guys)
Here I am, posting again! Today, I'm going to teach you about portuguese articles, nouns and demonstrative pronouns, such as their masculine and femenine gender forms. So let's start the class!

Firstly, I must teach you about portuguese articles. Do you guys remember what's an article? An article corresponds to the "the, a, an" of English. In portuguese, we have more articles than in english, and their use depends on the gender and number of the nouns. See below:

Masculine
The = O, plural Os
A = Um, plural Uns

Femenine
The = A, plural As
A = Uma, plural Umas

Then, when one says "The car", in portuguese, one says "O carro", and never "A carro", because "carro" is a masculine word. Unlike in english, in portuguese the gender of the nouns play an important role.
So pay attention below, because I'm going to write a list of nouns and their articles. By the articile and the ending of a noun, one can know wether it's a masculine or feminine word!

Carro car
O carro, um carro The car, a car

Casa house
A casa, uma casa The house, a house

Bicicleta bike
A bicicleta, uma bicicleta The bike, a bike

Livro book
O livro, um livro The book, a book

Pretty easy, huh? The only difficulty is that one needs to learn by heart the genders of the nouns! But there's a good hint for you: nouns ended in "o" usually are male, and the ones ended in "a" are usually female! For example, "cabelo hair" and "bolsa bag". "Cabelo" is a male noun and "bolsa" is a female one! Easy, isn't it?

Below, I'm going to put for you the demonstrative pronouns in portuguese.

This = Este(a)*
That = Esse(a)**, Aquele(a)

*(a) means it has a femenine version; in this case, it would be "Esta", "Essa", "Aquela". Just replace the last letter by an "a".
**"Esse" is used when one's talking about something that is next to the listener. "Aquele" is used only when one's mentioning something that is far from both the speaker and the listener.

Below, there are more examples of the use of the demonstrative articles. Pay attention, please!

Carro
Este carro, esse carro, aquele carro
Tis car, that car, that car

Casa
Esta casa, essa casa, aquela casa
This house, that house, that house

Bicicleta
Esta bicicleta, essa bicicleta, aquela bicicleta
This bike, that bike, that bike

Livro
Este livro, esse livro, aquele livro
This book, that book, that book

Well, this is all for today! I'm going to post more soon, and I hope you're liking my blog! Next time, I'm going to post a big vocabulary list, so prepare yourselves.

Um abraço, até mais!