🏡 Lição 2 — Minha vida

Things & people

Places

Glue words & first question words

Story words 📖 — every one of these turns up in this lição’s história

Don’t drill these like the lists above. Read them once, then meet them again in the story — that second meeting is what makes them stick.

1 · Every noun has a gender — and articles must match

Portuguese nouns are masculine or feminine — even objects. "The" and "a/an" change to match: masculine o / um, feminine a / uma (plurals os/as). Rule of thumb: words ending in -o are usually masculine, -a usually feminine — a strong tendency, not a law. The words that break it break it in groups, not one by one, and the card below shows both groups.

-o and -a is a strong tendency, not a law

Most words ending in -o are masculine and most ending in -a are feminine. Then there are two groups that are not, and they are groups, not oddities.

Masculine, all ending in -a. They came into Portuguese from Greek and kept the gender they arrived with. Learn them as a set and the “exception” disappears.

Feminine, ending in -o. The first two are clipped from longer feminine words — the ending changed, the gender did not.

And plenty end in neither: a parede, a árvore. Learn every noun with its article and none of this needs memorising twice.

2 · Contractions — em, de, and why they merge

Two tiny prepositions run half the language. em means in / on / at (location): em casa = at home. de means of / from (origin, possession): de Londres = from London. Here is the rule: when em or de lands directly before "the" (o/a/os/as), Portuguese always glues them into one word — saying "em o Brasil" is as wrong as saying "do not" when you mean "don't" is fine. The glue table:

3 · Regular -AR verbs — one machine, hundreds of verbs

Most Portuguese verbs end in -ar, and they all conjugate identically: cut -ar, add -o / -a / -amos / -am. Learn the pattern once with falar (to speak) and you instantly own morar (live), trabalhar (work), estudar (study) and hundreds more.

4 · TER — to have (irregular, but everywhere)

Ter = to have. It refuses the -AR machine, so memorize its four forms: tenho · tem · temos · têm. You need it for possessions, family — and later for age and obligation, so this investment pays forever.

5 · gostar DE — liking always takes "de"

To like = gostar de — literally "to like OF". The word de is not optional: Gosto de café, never "gosto café". And because de merges with articles (card 2!), "I like THE dog" becomes gosto DO cachorro.

6 · Negation — the easiest "no" in Europe… well, South America

To make any sentence negative, put não directly before the verb. That is the whole rule — no helpers, no word order changes.

7 · Plurals — your first pass

Most Portuguese plurals are friendly: add -s and make the ARTICLE plural too — o/os, a/as, um/uns, uma/umas. The important habit: everything in the phrase pluralizes together.

8 · The classic slips of Lesson 2

Round 1 · Flashcards

Round 2 · Choose the right answer

Round 3 · Type it (hardest — this builds real recall)

Accents are forgiven — "agua" counts as "água". Press Enter to check.

Did you understand?

🎤 Fala você! — now YOU speak

The step that turns knowledge into conversation. Answer each prompt out loud, in a full sentence — imperfect is fine, silent is not. Then open the model answer, compare, and say the model out loud too.

📐 New grammar

🔧 New verbs (6)

💬 New words (25)

Needs more repetition

• Complete the drills and test first.

How confident do you feel about the -ar pattern and ter? (1 = lost, 5 = easy)