Topic: Masculine and Feminine tips
As you guys might have seen, nouns and adjectives in Portuguese have an element to them that English words don't, which is a Gender, that is, Masculine or Feminine.
Often it's obvious by looking at the word, and sometimes you just have to know it by heart. For example,
o menino = the boy
a menina = the girl
o menino cansado = the tired boy
a menina cansada = the tired girl
os meninos cansados = the tired boys
You can notice a pattern here, which is universally true: the gender & number of the adjective must match the noun!
o menina cansados = ERRADO (WRONG)!
Simply by looking at the word 'gato' you can already tell that the word is masculine and singular, and you know that any adjective you want to use to describe it must also match gender and number.
But what about the word 'mensagem' (message)? At first glance it doesn't provide any hints to the gender. Luckily, you only have to memorize one rule and you're good to go. Make a mental note that all palavras ending in 'gem' are femininas!
a mensagem = message
a origem = origin
a viagem = trip
In addition to 'gem' words, other words that are always feminine end with 'dade', 'ão'
a cidade = the city
a universidade = the university
a conclusão = the conclusion
a solução = the solution
Things cant always be easy, that is why exceptions exist.
o coração
Another rule of thumb is that words of Greek origin are masculine. How are you supposed to know they are of Greek origin? Well one thing you can look for is if a word ends in 'oma', 'ema', and 'ama'
o tema = the theme
o drama = the drama
o idioma = the language
o mapa = the map
