Locating objects in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A1

Locating objects in Brazilian Portuguese

You and another person are looking for a familiar book and chair. Ask where each one is and give a short answer. The central pattern is está plus a location; small words join together inside that location.

Familiar objects and one new place

Recall o livro (the book), a mesa (the table) and a cadeira (the chair): o and a identify an object you both know. Add o armário, the cabinet, as a place to put the book. Livro and armário take o; mesa and cadeira take a. Listen to the nouns and say each with its article.

Onde means “where”; em cima de means “on top of” and embaixo de means “under”. You already met está for where a person is; use the same form for one object. The verb card here opens estar for things; only está is needed in this lesson.

Ask where the object is

Onde está o livro? means “Where is the book?”; Onde está a cadeira? means “Where is the chair?” Put onde first, then está, then the known object with o or a. Listen and repeat, changing only o livro to a cadeira.

You are asking for the object’s location, rather than its name. Keep está, from estar, for this task; the é used to identify a thing does a different job.

Onde está o livro / a cadeira?

Inside the location, join the small words

Está na mesa means “It is on the table”, while Está no armário means “It is in the cabinet”: em joins a to make na, and o to make no. Em gives a location; with these objects the context tells you “on the table” or “in the cabinet”, so do not translate every em as English “in”.

To specify the top surface, use em cima de; to specify underneath, use embaixo de, and join their final de with a as da, or with o as do. Thus em cima da mesa means “on top of the table”, em cima do armário means “on top of the cabinet”, and embaixo da mesa means “under the table”. In these short answers, the shared context lets Portuguese leave out the object’s name where English uses “it”; listen to all five examples.

Find the book, then the chair

Both people know which book and chair they mean. The book is on the table; the chair is tucked underneath it. Listen once without reading, then take either role; in the short book answer, Está na mesa, the subject is understood.

Repeat with the book inside the cabinet: keep the question and change the reply to Está no armário. This changes the location, without changing está.

Ask, answer, then check

Before reading the answers, imagine the book inside the cabinet. Ask where the book is and answer “It is in the cabinet”; then imagine it on top of the cabinet and give its full location. Finally, ask where the chair is and say that the chair is under the table. The five examples below check those five steps in order; listen after trying.

In the Explorer or a room near you, find a familiar book, table, chair or cabinet and describe only a position you can see. Keep the useful pieces together: onde está asks where; na/no combine em with a/o; da/do combine de with a/o after em cima or embaixo. Other combinations can wait until you need them.

Practise this lesson

Next lessons