Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

The confusing word a

The word a in Portuguese can be quite confusing for foreigners to understand in written or spoken Portuguese, because it has different meanings, namely:

Feminine definite article;
Unstressed feminine singular object pronoun;
Preposition;
Demonstrative pronoun.

How can you tell the difference?

Guidelines

The singular feminine article (a) and the plural feminine article (as) always precede feminine nouns and agree with them in number:

A mulher está aqui. => The woman is here.

As mulheres estão aqui. => The women are here.

Eu vi a mulher. => I've seen the woman.

Eu vi as mulheres.= > I've seen the women.

The unstressed object pronouns (a, as) play the role of direct object of transitive verbs and always precede them:

Eu não a amo. => I don't love her.

Eu não as amo. => I don't love them.

The unstressed feminine object pronouns used in cases of enclisis and mesoclisis are the allomorphic forms la, las, na, nas:

Ama-la-ia. => (I or he) would love her.

Ama-las-ão. => They will love them.

Pediram-na que ficasse lá. => They asked her to stay there.

Pediram-nas que ficassem lá. => They asked them to stay there.