Natural sciences

What holds these lists together

Not a degree course, but what really appears in an explanatory article, a field guide or a warning notice — from rocks and weather to birds, fungi and fish. The value lies less in the science than in the places where Portuguese draws its lines differently. O tempo is both time and weather, so o tempo está a mudar needs its context before you know whether to take an umbrella. Scientific compounds double their s where the second part begins with one, which English never does: a fotossíntese, o ecossistema, a biossegurança. A reader who knows the English word can still misspell every one of them.

For example: a fauna (the fauna), a resultante (the resultant force), a matéria-prima (the raw material), o relevo (the relief (of the land)), vento dominante (the prevailing wind), a copa das árvores (the tree canopy)

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.