Describing objects and plurals in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A1

Describing objects and plurals in Brazilian Portuguese

You are looking at books and tables with a friend. Describe their size and whether the books are new or old, then say where the books are. The central change is from one object to several: the article, noun, adjective and verb work together.

Words for what you can see

Recover o livro (the book), a mesa (the table), um (one), dois (two) and aqui (here). Livro is grammatically masculine and mesa feminine; o and a identify the object you both know. É describes in our examples; está gives the location.

Listen to grande (large), pequeno (small), novo (new) and velho (old). Novo and velho describe objects here, not a person’s age. These are contrasting descriptions of objects you see; you do not need a word meaning “than”.

Describe one object

O livro é grande means “the book is large”; replace grande with pequeno, novo or velho to change the description. In these examples the adjective follows the noun, either directly or after é. Unlike English adjectives, pequeno changes with the noun’s grammatical gender: o livro é pequeno, but a mesa é pequena.

Listen to the ending in pequeno/pequena, then compare the location model O livro está aqui (“the book is here”). We use ser for these descriptions and estar for location; this is not a general rule about permanent and temporary things.

O livro / A mesa é + característica / está + aqui

One book, several books

Compare Um livro novo (“one new book”) with Dois livros novos (“two new books”): livro → livros and novo → novos. For these words, add -s; grande becomes grandes, pequeno becomes pequenos and velho becomes velhos. With a known group, o becomes os, and é becomes são: Os livros são grandes (“the books are large”).

A mesa é pequena becomes As mesas são pequenas (“the tables are small”): a → as, mesa → mesas, pequena → pequenas and é → são. Unlike English, the plural appears on the adjective too. Listen and repeat the whole groups, noticing the final plural sounds; the sound of final -s varies by region, and before another vowel it often sounds like z, as in livros estão.

Um livro novo → Dois livros novos ; O livro é… → Os livros são… / A mesa é… → As mesas são…

Ask about the books

A visitor asks whether one book is new; the friend says it is old, then points out the other books. The question O livro é novo? keeps the statement’s word order and changes the intonation.

For location, está becomes estão with several books: Os livros estão aqui means “the books are here”. São and estão both translate as “are” here, but they do different jobs: Os livros são velhos describes them; Os livros estão aqui locates them. Listen, then take each speaker’s part.

Recognize variation, then try it

You may hear Os livro são novos: os already marks more than one, while the noun has no plural ending in this spoken variant. Plural marking varies across speakers and situations; this is a language pattern, not evidence that speakers cannot communicate or think clearly.

Recognize this example without having to produce it; for your own practice and conventional writing here, use Dois livros novos and Os livros são velhos with the displayed agreement. Before looking back, say “two new books”, turn O livro é pequeno into a description of several books, and say that those books are here.

Check: Dois livros novos; Os livros são pequenos; Os livros estão aqui. Remember: describe with é/são, locate with está/estão in these models, and let the endings show one or several objects.

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