Identifying objects in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A1

Identifying objects in Brazilian Portuguese

You are looking at objects with someone. Ask what an object is, then name it with Isso é um/uma…; use o/a when you both know which object you mean. You can use these phrases while exploring, even if you have not finished the lessons.

Three objects, with their articles

Livro means book, mesa means table and cadeira means chair. Learn the article with each noun: um livro / o livro; uma mesa / a mesa; uma cadeira / a cadeira. Livro is grammatically masculine; mesa and cadeira are feminine: this is a property of the word, not a statement about the object.

English a and the do not change for gender; Portuguese um/o and uma/a do. The endings of these three nouns help, but they are not a rule for every noun. Listen to the words here, then hear each noun with its article in the sentences below.

Ask what it is, then name it

In these pointing examples, the objects are beside the person you are talking to. Recall é from identity statements: here it links the object to its name. O que é isso? means “What is this/that?”; learn o que as “what”, without treating its o as the article in o livro. Listen to the question, then the three answers.

Isso points to the thing before you name it. In these answers, it stays isso with all three nouns: Isso é um livro; Isso é uma mesa; Isso é uma cadeira. Choose um for livro and uma for mesa or cadeira. Here you are saying what kind of thing it is, like “a book”, rather than selecting a particular book already known to both of you.

Isso é um / uma …

When you both know which object

Imagine you agreed to look at a particular book, table and chair, and someone points to one of them. É o livro means “It’s the book”: both of you can identify which book is meant. Use a in É a mesa and É a cadeira for the same reason.

Compare um livro, a book being introduced, with o livro, the identifiable book; uma mesa with a mesa. An object need not have been mentioned aloud if the shared situation identifies it. In these short answers Portuguese can leave out the subject; é still means “is”.

É o / a …

Ask, listen, ask for repetition

Two people look at a book and then a chair. The first person misses the first answer and uses Pode repetir? — “Could you repeat that?” — from the politeness lesson. Use it as a complete request; no new verb pattern is needed here. Listen once, then take either role and say the lines.

Try it in the Explorer

Before reading the answers, imagine pointing to a table: ask what it is, then say “That is a table”; next, point to the particular chair you both agreed to find and say “It’s the chair”. Check with O que é isso? and the first two examples below. In the Explorer, look for familiar objects, listen to their names and try these short identifications; you can begin exploring now.

The final sentence is for recognition: Isto é um livro also means “This is a book”. You may hear both isto and isso; in Brazilian conversation, isso often also points to something near the speaker, so no fixed distance contrast is required here. Keep the useful contrast: um/uma introduces what kind of thing it is, while o/a identifies the object in your shared context.

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