2. Articles
• Most English speaker recognize three articles:
– The indefinite articles ( a and an )
– The definite article ( the )
• There is an article problem that occurs as well:
the usage of no article. This happen because
some languages:
– have no articles (Chinese),
– some have only the definite article (Arabic),
– and others have the same articles as English but their
usage maybe different (French).
9. Articles – difference between English
and Portuguese
Definite Article
• Unlike English, which has only one definite
article “the", Portuguese has 4 definite
articles:
- O (masculine singular), O livro (the book)
- A (masculine singular) A casa (the house)
- Os (masculine plural) Os livros (the books)
- As (feminine plural) As casas (the houses)
10. Articles – difference between English
and Portuguese
Indefinite Article
•While we have (a / an / some) in English as indefinite articles, we also
have um/ uma. uns/ umas in Portuguese.
•In general, whenever (a, an) are used in English you, you need to use (un) or
(una) to say the equivalent in Portuguese.
- Um (masculine singular), um livro (a book)
- Uma (masculine singular) uma casa (a house)
- Uns (masculine plural) uns livros (some books)
- Umas (feminine plural) umas casas (some houses)
Example: Os livros que tenho estão em casa de um amigo (The books I have
are in a house of a friend)
11. References
• FOLSE, Keith S.; Keys to teaching Grammar to
English Language Learners, a practical
handbook. 2012. United States of America.
• http://mylanguages.org/portuguese_articles.p
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