Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

Noun gender

There are two grammatical genders in Portuguese: all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Below are some rules to help you get the gender right, but try not to take these rules as the law of gravity, because there are a lot of exceptions. Keep in mind that:

Nouns denoting male human beings are always masculine: they take the masculine articles and pronouns, regardless of the word ending, with just a few exceptions (called substantivos sobrecomuns - see number 20);

Nouns denoting female human beings are always feminine: they take the feminine articles and pronouns, regardless of the word ending, with just a few exceptions (called substantivos sobrecomuns - see number 20);

Most nouns ending in a consonant add -a to form the feminine.

Rules

1. Nouns ending in -o are almost always masculine:

o carro	the car	o livro	the book
o pássaro	the bird	o rádio	the radio
o vidro	the glass	o cachorro	the dog
o sonho	the dream	o governo	the government

2. Nouns ending in -a are usually feminine:

a casa	the house	a garrafa	the bottle
a garota	the girl	a página	the page
a música	the music	a água	the water
a loja	the store	a lua	the moon

Notes:

Some nouns ending in -a, especially those denoting occupations, may be masculine or feminine according to sex gender; in this case, use the articles or any other determiners (pronouns, numbers) to tell the difference between the genders:

o jornalista	the male journalist	este artista	this male artist
a jornalista	the female journalist	esta artista	this female artist
aquele dentista	that male dentist	um ginasta	a male gymnast
aquela dentista	that female dentist	uma ginasta	a female gymnast

The nouns in the table above are called substantivos comuns de dois gêneros (common gender nouns).
Nouns ending in á (a with an acute accent) are masculine: o xará (namesake), o xá (the shah), o Canadá (Canada), o Pará (name of a Brazilian state), etc.