A1 · The noun
Numbers, the time and the date
Numbers have a gender, and the time of day is plural.
At a glance
- Remember
- One o'clock is é, every other hour is são.
- Form
- um café, uma cervejaone coffee, one beer
- Signal words
- uma
- duas
- duzentas
- são
- às
- meia
- Trap
- Wrong:É três horas e meia.Right:São três horas e meia.
Your turn
5 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
The forms and what they mean
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in Portuguese.
| one coffee, one beer | um café, uma cerveja |
| two coffees, two beers | dois cafés, duas cervejas |
| two hundred pages | duzentas páginas |
| a hundred, a hundred and ten | cem, cento e dez |
| it is one o'clock | é uma hora |
| it is half past ten | são dez e meia |
| at three o'clock | às três |
| on the fifteenth of May | a quinze de maio |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
um and dois, the hundreds and every number ending in them agree with the noun.
Queria duas cervejas e um café.I'd like two beers and a coffee.
The time takes ser in the plural — except one o'clock, noon and midnight.
É uma hora. / São três horas.It is one o'clock. / It is three o'clock.
« At » a time is às, at one o'clock à.
A reunião é às nove.The meeting is at nine.
A hundred on its own is cem, with more after it cento.
Custa cem euros, não cento e dez.It costs a hundred euros, not a hundred and ten.
Example sentences
O comboio parte às oito e um quarto.The train leaves at a quarter past eight.
São quase cinco horas, temos de ir.It's almost five o'clock, we have to go.
A sala tem duzentas e vinte cadeiras.The hall has two hundred and twenty chairs.
Faço anos a vinte e um de março.My birthday is on the twenty-first of March.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
The time sounds singular and is not. Whoever takes « it is » literally says é três horas; correct is são três horas, because the subject is the hours. Only é uma hora, é meio-dia and é meia-noite stay singular.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
Two numbers agree with the noun: um and uma, dois and duas — um café, uma cerveja, dois cafés, duas cervejas. After that nothing changes until the hundreds: duzentos livros, but duzentas páginas. The same holds inside a longer number: vinte e uma pessoas. English numbers never agree with anything, so this is a habit to build rather than a rule to carry across.
Between the parts of a number stands e: trinta e cinco, cento e vinte e três — like the « and » in « a hundred and twenty-three », but between every part. A hundred on its own is cem, with something after it cento: cem euros, cento e dez euros. In Portugal sixteen, seventeen and nineteen are written dezasseis, dezassete, dezanove.
The time is told with ser, and the subject is the hours: é uma hora, but são duas horas, são dez e meia. English says « it is » whatever the hour; here only one o'clock, noon and midnight stay singular: é meio-dia, é meia-noite. Because hora is feminine, it is uma, duas and meia.
« At three o'clock » is às três — a plus as horas — and « at one o'clock » is à uma. The date takes the plain cardinal number, never « the fifteenth », and the month has a small letter: a quinze de maio, no dia três de março. The year is said in full, never in pairs like « twenty twenty-six »: dois mil e vinte e seis.
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