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How do you talk about where you live in Portuguese?

Here, we will take an introductory look at how to talk about where you live in Portuguese. We'll look at countries and also cities.
Saying Where One Lives Country And City

Here, we will take an introductory look at how to talk about where you live in Portuguese. We’ll look at countries and also cities. Listen to the audio link to learn and practice your pronunciation.

Follow the interaction with the audio

Listen

Onde você mora? = Where do you live?
Eu moro no Brasil, em Porto Alegre. E você? = I live in Brazil, in Porto Alegre. And you?
Eu moro no Reino Unido, em Londres. = I live in the UK, in London.
Porto Alegre (The image shows Porto Alegre)
Now, we’ll use the verb morar (to live). Observe the use of no, nos, na, nas and em and try to figure out when we use them. Then check the answer below. It works just like do(s), da(s), de.
BrazilListen PortugalListen
Eu moro no Brasil. = I live in Brazil.
Tu moras na Itália.
Ele mora nos Estados Unidos.
Nós moramos nas Filipinas. = We live in Philippines.
Elas moram em Paris.
Eu moro no Brasil, em São Paulo.

ANSWER:

  • no goes before masculine and singular countries.
  • na goes before feminine and singular countries.
  • nos before masculine and plural countries.
  • nas before feminine and plural countries.
  • em is neutral and goes before cities.

NOTE: There are exceptions to these rules

e.g. no Rio de Janeiro, em Portugal etc. Also, in general, em can precede countries, but na(s) and no(s) are often used. Example: em Itália is OK, but na Itália may be more frequent.
This table shows how prepositions and articles merge:
If we take the table above into account, here is a word-for-word translation:
Eu moro no Brasil. = I live in the Brazil.
Eu moro nos Estados Unidos. = I live in the United States.

Let’s listen to one more interaction

Now they address each other as ‘tu’:
Onde tu moras?
Eu moro na França, em Paris. E tu?
Eu moro na Itália, em Milão.

 

How about you? Where do you live? If you see anybody who lives in the same country or city, you can reply the following:

Eu também = me too.

Eu também moro na Itália = I live in Italy as well.

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Foundations of Portuguese for Global Communication

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

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