Learn possessive adjectives
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Thássia: Ola! |
| Braden: Braden here! This is Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 7 - Portuguese: Girl or Boy Language? |
| Thássia: Hello everyone! I'm Thássia, and welcome back to PortuguesePOD101. |
| Braden: With us, you'll learn to speak Portuguese with fun and effective lessons. We also provide you with cultural insights... |
| Thássia: ...and tips you won't find in a textbook. |
| Braden: In this lesson, we'll focus on how to use possessive words. |
| Thássia: This conversation is between Davi and Natalie and takes place just outside the party they were in. |
| Braden: The situation is very casual so they will be speaking informally. Let's have a listen. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Davi: Como está a sua família? |
| Natalie: A minha família está bem, obrigada. |
| Davi: E seu irmão, Alex? |
| Natalie: Você lembra de Ana Paula, nossa amiga? Eles vão se casar. |
| Braden:One time, slowly, please. |
| Davi: Como está a sua família? |
| Natalie: A minha família está bem, obrigada. |
| Davi: E seu irmão, Alex? |
| Natalie: Você lembra de Ana Paula, nossa amiga? Eles vão se casar. |
| Braden:And one time fast with translation. |
| Braden:One time, natural speed with the translation. |
| Davi: Como está a sua família? |
| Braden: How is your family? |
| Natalie: A minha família está bem, obrigada. |
| Braden: My family is well, thank you. |
| Davi: E seu irmão, Alex? |
| Braden: And your brother, Alex? |
| Natalie: Você lembra de Ana Paula, nossa amiga? Eles vão se casar. |
| Braden: Do you remember Ana Paula, our friend? They're getting married. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Braden: You know, I've always found it interesting that in Portuguese the word "the" is used very often. |
| Thássia: Yes, it is. In fact, most of the time when you're talking about anything, we use the word "the" before it. |
| Braden: In Portuguese, all nouns have the word "the" before them, always. |
| Thássia: I don't know about always, but most of the time that's certainly true. |
| Braden: And to make it even more fun, from an English point of view, sometimes "the" is used in strange places. |
| Thássia: That's true. Davi asked about Natalie's family and said "a sua família," which literally translates to "the your family." |
| Braden: Exactly! That's a normal way to use the word "the" in Portuguese but it makes absolutely no sense in English. |
| Thássia: I know. When I write something in English, like an email, I always need to review what I wrote and delete the extra "the's." |
| Braden: Do you do that? |
| Thássia: Yes. |
| Braden: It really was hard for me to learn how to use "the" correctly, especially since there are two in Portuguese. |
| Thássia: That's true. There is the masculine "the" which is "o" and the feminine "the" which is "a." It's better to say, "do" and "da." |
| Braden: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Thássia: The first word we shall see is: meu [natural native speed]. |
| Brade: My, mine. |
| Thássia: Meu [slowly - broken down by syllable], meu [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: The next word is. |
| Thássia: Seu [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Your, yours. |
| Thássia: Seu [slowly - broken down by syllable], seu [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Next we have. |
| Thássia: Minha [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: My, mine. |
| Thássia: Minha [slowly - broken down by syllable], minha [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: The next word is. |
| Thássia: Sua [natural native speed. ] |
| Braden: Your, yours. |
| Thássia: Sua [slowly - broken down by syllable], sua [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Next. |
| Thássia: Nossa [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Our, ours. |
| Thássia: Nossa [slowly - broken down by syllable], nossa [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: And then we have. |
| Thássia: Nosso [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Our, ours. |
| Thássia: Nosso [slowly - broken down by syllable], nosso [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: And the last word is. |
| Thássia: Família [natural native speed]. |
| Braden: Family |
| Thássia: Família [slowly - broken down by syllable], família [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Thássia: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Braden: In Portuguese, there are several ways to express possession. |
| Thássia: In this lesson, we will learn how to express possession using the words "meu" and "minha," "nosso" and "nossa," then "seu" and "sua." |
| Braden: The reason we have these words in pairs like that is because of grammatical gender. |
| Thássia: We briefly discussed grammatical gender in All About Series Lesson 3. |
| Braden: And a detailed explanation of grammatical gender is offered in the Absolute Beginner series lesson 10. |
| Thássia: Listen to those lessons if you have any questions about gender. |
| Braden: And if you still have questions after listening to those lessons, send us an email or post a comment on the blog. We'd love to hear from you. |
| Thássia: So, first we're going to learn about "meu" and "minha." |
| Braden: Right. "Meu" and "minha" both mean "my," but they function differently in Portuguese sentences. |
| Thássia: That's right. "Meu" is for words of masculine gender and "minha" is for words of feminine gender. |
| Braden: Like in the phrase… |
| Thássia: "Meu livro." |
| Braden: Which means "my book," the word "livro" is a masculine word. So you have to use "meu" to say "my book." |
| Thássia: And in the phrase "minha caneta," which means "my pen," the word "pen" is a feminine word, so you have to use "minha" if you want to say "my pen." |
| Braden: Exactly. The same thing goes for the word "our." |
| Thássia: That's right. "Nosso" and "nossa" both mean "our," but "nosso" is the masculine word and "nossa" is the feminine word. |
| Braden: So if you want to say the phrase "our house," you need to say… |
| Thássia: "Nossa casa." |
| Braden: If you say "nosso casa" it sounds very wrong, doesn't it? |
| Thássia: Yes, it does. Or if you want to say "our car," you would say "nosso carro" because "carro" is a masculine word. It needs to have the masculine form of "our," which is "nosso." |
| Braden: Okay. Last, we have… |
| Thássia: "Seu" and "sua." These are very versatile words. |
| Braden: They could mean "your," "his," "her," or with a little modification "their" depending on the context. |
| Thássia: Good! In this lesson, we will explain how to use it to mean "your." We will cover the other meanings according to context in future lessons. |
| Braden: So if you want to say "your bag," you would say… |
| Thássia: "Sua bolsa." |
| Braden: Because the word… |
| Thássia: "Bolsa." |
| Braden: Is a feminine word, and "sua" is the feminine form of "your." |
| Thássia: Likewise, to say, "your friend," you would say "seu amigo" because "amigo" is a masculine of friend and it requires the masculine "your," which is "seu." |
| Braden: Let's take a look at today's grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
| Thássia: The focus of this lesson is how to use possessive adjectives in Portuguese. |
| Braden: In the dialogue, we heard the phrase… |
| Thássia: "Nossa amiga?" |
| Braden: Which means "our friend." |
| Thássia: In English, the words "my," "your," and "our" are called possessive adjectives. |
| Braden: Sorry to throw a grammar word at you like that, but she really likes to say those two words. |
| Thássia: It's fun! Anyway, Portuguese has more of those than English does. But for the most part, they are used the same way. |
| Braden: Exactly. Just as in English, the possessive comes first. |
| Thássia: For example, "minha gravata" has "minha," first, which means "my," and then second, the word "gravata," which means "tie." |
| Braden: As in "necktie." |
| Thássia: Right. |
| Braden: So the word order is the same, "minha gravata" "my tie." You know what that means! |
| Thássia: You don't need to worry much about the grammar. |
| Braden: Exactly! The goal is to get you speaking Portuguese fluently as fast as possible and unnecessary explanations will slow you down. |
| Thássia: But if you have questions, or don't understand something please post in the web site. We're here to help you. |
| Braden: Right! In the dialogue we also heard the phrase… |
| Thássia: "A sua família." |
| Braden: Which literally translates to "the your family" but it means just "your family." |
| Thássia: The word "a" at the beginning of the phrase means "the." |
| Braden: In Portuguese, words like "the," "a," and "an" called articles or in Portuguese “A” can often be used before possessive words with hardly any change in meaning. |
| Thássia: But it does give a slight increase in politeness. |
| Braden: That's right. That just about does it for today. |
| Thássia: You want to make the vocab words from this lesson stick? |
| Braden: Check out the vocabulary list provided with each lesson, available to premium members. |
| Thássia: Click on any word to automatically add it to your word bank. |
| Braden: Words added to your word bank can be made into flashcards used to quiz yourself. |
| Thássia: Give it a try at PortuguesePOD101.com. |
| Braden: That's going to do it. |
| Thássia: Até mais! |
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