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Itz_Rachelzz
19 mai 2022

  • Inglês (Reino Unido)
  • Coreano
  • Japonês
  • Português (Brasil)
Pergunta sobre Português (Brasil)

I know that Um is masculine and Uma is feminine but how can you tell which words are for what gender?

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Capivara_Poliglota
19 mai 2022

  • Português (Brasil)

Keeping it simple: usually, words that end with A are feminine and words that end with O or R are masculine.

Ex: O carro, o professor, a casa, a aluna...

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ricmsouza
19 mai 2022

  • Português (Brasil)

Hi,
the rule presented by Capivara is true, but be aware of several exceptions, such as these:

> o assaltante, a assaltante - same word for a male or female robber.
> o lápis; o painel; o canapé - masculine words not ending with "o"
> a abelha - refer to males and females bumblebees, although technically wrong
> a printer; o mouse - English-derived words that took female or male gender

All the best

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Highly-rated answerer
Itz_Rachelzz
19 mai 2022

  • Inglês (Reino Unido)
@ricmsouza oh my gosh thanks for the detail I’ll keep that in mind while I’m learning 😊
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Capivara_Poliglota
19 mai 2022

  • Português (Brasil)

Going deep: there are four tipes of nouns, if classified by genre. They are:

Sobrecomum: words that aleays have ths same article and the same ending, no matter if they refer to a male or a female. Some examples are:

A criança
A criatura
O algoz
A testemunha
O cônjuge.


Comum de dois gêneros: the article changes, but the ending does not. Ex:

o assaltante - a assaltante
o artista – a artista;
o camarada – a camarada;
o colega – a colega;
o colegial – a colegial;
o jovem - a jovem.

Substantivos biformes: are those where both the article and the ending vary depending on whether the word is masculine or feminine. Examples:

O gato / a gata;
O professor / a professora;
O cidadão / a cidadã;
O fulano / a fulana;
O amigo / a amiga.

Since you're still starting, I'd recommend not to worry too much about these nuances. leave it for when you are at an intermediate level.

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_Eduardo_
19 mai 2022

  • Português (Brasil)

@Itz_Rachelzz

>how can you tell which words are for what gender?

That's the fun part. You can't 🙃

Seriously, though. There are some rules, but you have mostly to memorize the words' gender.

- Words that end in "a" are mostly feminine
- Words that end in "o" are mostly masculine
- Words that end in "agem" or "dade" are mostly feminine
- Feelings are mostly feminine
- Words that end in "ção" are mostly feminine ("coração" is an exception)

If you're learning through reading, pay attention to pronouns, articles and adjectives, so you can memorize the gender of the nouns next to them.

If you are writing words down, put "o" and "a" next to them, so you can know their gender.

Highly-rated answerer
Itz_Rachelzz
26 mai 2022

  • Inglês (Reino Unido)
@_Eduardo_ thank you so Cão is masculine as well since it ends in ‘o’?
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_Eduardo_
26 mai 2022

  • Português (Brasil)

@Itz_Rachelzz Yes, "cão" is masculine but it's not because it ends in "o". The thing is that most words that end in "o" are masculine, but you can't know for sure.

It's like learning the stress of a word. You don't learn rules to know that "interesting" is pronounced as "INteresting" rather than "inteRESting". You just get used to other people saying it that way, so it becomes natural to you and the wrong stress sounds weird. As you hear people saying a word many times with the right gender, you get used to it and it just feels more natural.


For things that have words of both genders (like cão), yes, every word that ends in "o" is masculine.

cão = male dog
cadela = female dog
gato = male cat
gata = female cat

But you can't know for sure if "pão" (bread) and "questão" (question) are masculine. ("pão" is, "questão" isn't)

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