A escola cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro fica perto da praça.

Cuja is a possessive relative pronoun. It connects a escola to professora de geografia and shows a relationship of possession or association:

• a escola
• cuja professora de geografia... = whose geography teacher...

So the structure is basically:

• A escola cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro...
• The school whose geography teacher lives in my neighborhood...

This is one of the main uses of cujo / cuja / cujos / cujas in Portuguese.

Because cujo agrees with the thing possessed, not with the noun that comes before it.

Here, the possessed thing is:

• professora → feminine singular

So we use:

• cuja professora

The forms are:

• cujo = masculine singular
• cuja = feminine singular
• cujos = masculine plural
• cujas = feminine plural

Examples:

• o aluno cujo pai mora aqui = the student whose father lives here
• a aluna cuja mãe mora aqui = the student whose mother lives here
• a escola cujos alunos estudam muito = the school whose students study a lot
• a escola cujas salas são grandes = the school whose classrooms are big

Not directly in the same structure.

Portuguese does not normally say:

• a escola que a professora de geografia dela mora no meu bairro ❌

That sounds unnatural or incorrect in standard Portuguese.

A natural alternative would be to rephrase the sentence, for example:

• A escola em que a professora de geografia mora no meu bairro trabalha... ❌
  This changes the meaning, so it does not work here.

A better rephrasing would be something like:

• A escola da qual a professora de geografia mora perto... ❌
  Also wrong for the intended meaning.

For possession, cujo/cuja is the standard elegant form. In everyday speech, Brazilians often avoid it by restructuring the sentence, but in this exact kind of sentence, cuja is the best standard choice.

Because cujo/cuja normally comes directly before the noun, without an article.

So you say:

• cuja professora ✅
• cuja a professora ❌

This is a very important rule.

More examples:

• o autor cujo livro li = the author whose book I read
• a menina cuja irmã estuda comigo = the girl whose sister studies with me

Not:

• cujo o livro ❌
• cuja a irmã ❌

De geografia means of geography or, more naturally in English, geography as a noun modifier.

So:

• professora de geografia = geography teacher

This is a very common Portuguese pattern:

• professor de inglês = English teacher
• livro de história = history book
• aula de matemática = math class

Portuguese often uses de + subject/topic/material where English uses a noun directly before another noun.

Because its subject is professora de geografia, which is singular.

Inside the relative clause, the structure is:

• cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro

The person who lives is the teacher, not the school.

So:

• a professora mora → singular verb mora

If it were plural, you would say:

• A escola cujas professoras de geografia moram no meu bairro...

Both are possible, but no meu bairro is much more natural in everyday Brazilian Portuguese.

• no = em + o
• but here bairro has meu before it, so the full phrase is understood as em o meu bairro, which contracts in standard usage to no meu bairro

This is very common:

• no meu carro
• na minha casa
• nos meus livros
• nas minhas aulas

You may sometimes see em meu bairro in formal writing, but no meu bairro is the usual spoken form in Brazil.

In this sentence, fica means is located rather than stays.

• A escola ... fica perto da praça.
• The school ... is near the square.
• or The school ... is located near the square.

Portuguese often uses ficar to talk about location:

• O banco fica na esquina. = The bank is on the corner.
• Minha casa fica longe. = My house is far away.

So here fica perto da praça is a very normal way to say where the school is.

Da praça means of the square or more naturally near the square as part of the expression perto de.

• perto de = near
• de + a = da

So:

• perto da praça = near the square

This contraction is very common:

• perto do mercado = near the market
• longe da praia = far from the beach
• ao lado da escola = next to the school

Because this relative clause is restrictive: it identifies which school we are talking about.

The sentence means something like:

• the school whose geography teacher lives in my neighborhood

This information is necessary to identify the school, so no commas are used.

If it were extra, non-essential information, commas might appear. Compare:

• A escola cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro fica perto da praça.
  = We are identifying which school.

Versus a different idea like:

• A escola, cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro, fica perto da praça.

With commas, it sounds more like extra parenthetical information, which is less natural here unless the school is already clearly identified.

The sentence can be divided into two main parts:

1. A escola cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro
   = the subject, expanded by a relative clause

2. fica perto da praça
   = the main verb and location

A simple breakdown:

• A escola = the school
• cuja professora de geografia mora no meu bairro = whose geography teacher lives in my neighborhood
• fica perto da praça = is near the square

So the core sentence is:

• A escola fica perto da praça.

And the middle part tells you which school.

It is common in educated written Portuguese and definitely important to understand, but in everyday casual speech many Brazilians use it less often and may rephrase to avoid it.

So:

• You should absolutely learn cujo/cuja for reading, writing, and formal speech.
• But in informal conversation, people often choose simpler sentence structures instead of using it.

Even so, this sentence is perfectly correct and natural, especially in more careful language.

In this sentence, cuja makes the relationship clear: it is the geography teacher belonging to / associated with that school.

So the meaning is not just any geography teacher. It is:

• the school whose geography teacher lives in my neighborhood

Without cuja, that ownership/association would be less clear. This is exactly why cujo/cuja is useful: it expresses that relationship neatly and precisely.