Countries and nationalities in Brazilian Portuguese

This page outlines how to talk about countries and nationalities in Brazilian Portuguese.

One of the most common questions you’ll be asked in Brazil is where you’re from:

Note: unlike in English, nationalities (e.g. Portuguese, English, etc) are not capitalised (e.g. português, inglês, etc).

Use of grammatical genders for countries in Brazilian Portuguese 

Like other nouns, countries in Brazilian Portuguese are assigned a grammatical gender.  The definite article is often also used when talking about countries

• Countries ending in a are generally feminine (e.g. a Bélgica)  and countries ending in o are generally masculine (e.g. o Japão).  There are some exceptions to this e.g. o Uganda
• Countries ending in a consonant are masculine (e.g. o Equador) as well as countries that end in á (e.g. o Canadá) and ão e.g. (o Uzbequistão)
• The article a (singular) and as (plural) is placed before countries that have feminine names (e.g. a Espanha. as Bahamas)
• The article o (singular) and os (plural) is placed before countries that have masculine names (e.g. o Méxio; Os Estados Unidos)
• Some countries are considered gender neutral and as a result articles are not placed before the country name.  Examples include Portugal, Marrocos and Moçambique

See here for more information about grammatical gender in Brazilian Portuguese

See here for more information about nouns and articles in Brazilian Portuguese

Country names in Brazilian Portuguese

Australia	a Austrália
Belgium	a Bélgica
Brazil	o Brasil
Canada	o Canadá
China	a China
England	a Inglaterra
France	a França
Germany	a Alemanha
Greece	a Grécia
Japan	o Japão
Spain	a Espanha
United States	os Estados Unidos

Nationalities in Brazilian Portuguese

Australian	australiana/ australiano
Belgian	belga
Brazilian	brasileira/ brasileiro
Canadian	canadense
Chinese	chinês
English	inglês
French	francesa/ francês
German	alemã/ alemão
Greek	grega/ grego
Japanese	japonês
Spanish	espanhola/ espanhol
American	americana/ americano

Plural forms of nationalities in Brazilian Portuguese

• Nationalities in the plural are formed by adding an s at the end e.g. o brasileiro  becomes os brasileiros
• If the nationality ends in s in the singular, then its plural form takes the ending es e.g. o português becomes os portugueses.  If the nationality has an accent in the ending syllable, then this is also taken away

Countries and nationalities flashcards

Test your understanding of countries and nationalities using the flashcards below. Click on the card to reveal the translation and the arrows to move between questions:

Click here to go to the resources page