What this is about
Every Portuguese noun — table, love, problem, Tuesday — is either masculine or feminine. This is not about biology; it is a filing system the whole language runs on. The gender decides which "the" and "a/an" you use, and later, how adjectives end. Learn every noun WITH its article (o carro, not just "carro") and gender becomes automatic.
The article system
| the (sg) | the (pl) | a / an | some | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | o gato | os gatos | um gato | uns gatos |
| feminine | a casa | as casas | uma casa | umas casas |
How to guess the gender — and be right 90% of the time
| -o → masculine | o carro, o trabalho, o filho |
| -a → feminine | a casa, a comida, a família |
| -ção → feminine | a informação, a estação (like English -tion) |
| -dade → feminine | a cidade, a verdade (like English -ty) |
| -agem → feminine | a viagem, a mensagem |
The two groups that break the rule
| o dia | the day — masculine despite -a (bom dia!) |
| o mapa · o problema · o programa · o sistema | Greek imports in -ma/-pa are masculine — a group, not one-off oddities |
| a mão | the hand — feminine despite -ão |
| a foto · a moto | feminine — they are shortened from fotografia, motocicleta |
Why it matters beyond "the": gender ripples through the whole sentence — o carro novo vs a casa nova. Get the article right and everything else follows.
Practise this chapter
3 pool questions plus generated ones — 20 fresh practice questions, reshuffled every visit, inside the grammar library.
Practise Noun gender & articles — 20 questions →This chapter is taught in Lição 2 of the course — free, no account needed. Rumo is a complete Brazilian Portuguese course, A1 to B2; level A1 is free.
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