Numbers and Time

An English speaker counts without ever asking what is being counted: two chairs, two hours, two brothers — the numeral never moves. Portuguese does ask, but only twice. Um becomes uma and dois becomes duas when what follows is feminine, which is why the example under this entry reads duas cadeiras and not the form given as the headword. From três upwards the numerals are as indifferent as ours, so the whole difficulty sits on the first two rungs of the ladder. It returns once, at the hundreds: duzentos livros but duzentas cadeiras, and again in trezentas, quatrocentas and on to novecentas, while cem and mil stay put. The practical consequence is small and relentless. The number reached for first, « one », and the number reached for second, « two », are the two that cannot be said until the gender of the noun has already been settled, and they are also the two said most often. Clock time is where it bites hardest, because a hora is feminine: it is duas horas, never the masculine form, and uma hora, never um.