Combining Prepositions And Articles
Sitting down to enjoy a Portuguese translation of a popular book for teenagers, I stumbled early and often as the page was littered with semmingly common and familiar words which I couldn't translate. Words like pela, duma and na are used constantly in written and verbal Portuguese, here all mystery is revealed. The previous article Prepositions and Articles introduced prepositions (words such as of, to, for) and articles (the, an, a), here we go into the ways these are combined, going through each article in turn and demonstrating usage:
Em
'Em' can be used for 'at', 'in' and 'on'. When you want to say phrases 'at the' or 'on the', the preposition (em) and the article can be combined, and in this instance, the 'em' simply becomes an 'n' and merges with article.
| Em Combines with | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Em + O (Masc. the) | No | Encontrei-lo no parque (I found it in the park) |
| Em + A (Fem. the) | Na | Há nada na televisão (There's nothing on the TV) |
De
De means 'of' or 'from' and is simiar to 'em' in how it combines with the articles, with the preposition losing it's last letter and merging directly with the article:
| De Combines with | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| O (Masc. the) | Do | Aborrecio do ginásio (Bored of the gym) |
| A (Fem. the) | Da | Frente da loga (Front of the shop) |
| Um | Dum | Dum diferente tipo (Of a different type) |
| Uma | Duma | Venho duma família de engenheiros (I come from a family of engineers) |
A
Adjusting to the fact that 'A' means 'at' or 'to' in Portuguese may take a while, but combining the preposition with the articles is simple, albeit with a significant difference. Here we simply merge both parts together, but where the result would be 'aa', it becomes 'á' with an apostrophe to distinguish it from the regular 'a'.
| A Combines with | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| O (Masc. the) | Ao | Ao chão (to the floor) |
| A (Fem. the) | Á | Á janela (to the window) |
Por
Por can mean 'by', 'through' or 'for' and is less straight forward with how it combines with an article:
| Em Combines with | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| O (Masc. the) | Pelo | Pelo praia (by the beach) |
| A (Fem. the) | Pela | Pela companhia (for the company) |
Para, meaning 'to', 'for', 'in order to' is unsociable does not combine with any articles. Check back shortly as exercises are introduced into this article, plural variations and further prepositions are added!