In Portuguese, personal pronouns are obligated to a matching noun/object. Every noun is either masculine or feminine, and usually distinguished by the final letter of the term, which can in the majority of circumstances provide you with the gender of that term. Fortunately, few terms divert from this pattern. English pronouns>> he, she and they

There are two types, seu (masculine) and sua (feminine). Generally terms ending with the letter o, are masculine, and those ending in a are feminine. The plural forms are seus and suas, which is equivalent to your in English.

* They all simply mean your, not his, her or their*

Example: Suas praias sao lindas. Your beaches are beautiful.

Notice that praia in the singular (beach) ends in the letter a, and in turn is a feminine object, thus matching with the feminine form of sua, or suas in the plural form.

*This is not to say that the the object is in possession of a man or a woman, as in English - That is his/her pen. This is a possessive pronoun, and the matching of the personal pronoun in Portuguese does not determine the gender of the holder of the object, just that it is being possessed. Examples: seu carro, can either mean that the car (carro) is owned by a man or woman. Sua caneta can also be owned by a man or woman.

The way to distinguish whether or not the possessor of the object is a man or woman with certainty in Portuguese is by using a contraction of the personal pronoun/gender and the prepositional phrase of. This is done as follows: A caneta dele e' azul.

Also note the direct object/noun agreement of - A caneta and O carro (the pen and the car)

This is translated word for word as: The pen of him is blue. In English, we don't phrase our possessive pronoun/object in this fashion, but like: His pen is blue.

If we have a object in possession of a female, then you have: O carro dela e' muito caro. Her car is very expensive.

Plural forms become: A casa deles e' muito linda e luxa - Their house is very beautiful and luxurious.

When one or more men are included in a group of possessors, the corresponding possession takes on the masculine form of deles. Only if the house was possessed by all females, would you use. A casa delas e' muito linda e luxa.

In Portuguese, you have to identify the gender of the person and use the correct possessive pronoun/contraction of    de and ele/ela/eles/elas to specify whether the owner/s of the object/s are male/s or female/s or both.

Personal Pronouns and Matching Gender Specific Nouns

* You have 3 examples of commonly used nouns ending in the letter A that don't follow the regular feminine form.

Possession With Contraction of De and Ele/Ela/Eles/Elas

* Mao is an example of a noun ending in O that doesn't follow the typical masculine form.

Other Contractions in Portuguese  - When the prepositional phrases de and em are used with the definite (a, o, as, os) and indefinite articles (um, uma, uns, umas), you make Portuguese contractions.

 

de = of/from	Pronunciation	Translation		em = in/on	Pronunciation	Translation
do pai	doh pahee	of/from the father		no copo	noh coh-poh	in/on the cup
da familia	dah fah-mee-lee-ah	of/from the family		num carro	noom cahr-hoh	in/on a car
duma menina	doo-mah meh-nee-nah	of/from a girl		no armario	noh ahr-mah-ree-oh	in/on the closet
dum homen	doom oh-meen	of/from a man		num site	noom sigh-teh	in/on a site
dos garotos	dohs gah-roh-tohs	of/from the guys		nos arquivos	nos ahr-kee-voos	in/on the folders
dos contatos	dohs cohn-tah-tohs	of/from the contacts		num livro	noom leev-roh	in/on a book

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