Word
A professora cujas alunas gostam de estudar na biblioteca vai explicar a lição amanhã.
Meaning
The teacher whose students like to study in the library is going to explain the lesson tomorrow.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of A professora cujas alunas gostam de estudar na biblioteca vai explicar a lição amanhã.
gostar de
to like
estudar
to study
amanhã
tomorrow
ir
to go (future auxiliary)
Questions & Answers about A professora cujas alunas gostam de estudar na biblioteca vai explicar a lição amanhã.
What does cujas mean here, and what kind of word is it?
Cujas is a possessive relative pronoun. It works like English whose.
It connects a professora with alunas and shows possession:
- the teacher
- whose students
So cujas alunas means whose female students.
This is a very useful structure in Portuguese, but it is more formal than many everyday alternatives in spoken Brazilian Portuguese.
Why is it cujas and not cujo, cuja, or cujos?
Because cujo agrees with the thing being possessed, not with the possessor.
In this sentence:
Since alunas is feminine plural, the correct form is cujas.
The full set is:
- cujo = masculine singular
- cuja = feminine singular
- cujos = masculine plural
- cujas = feminine plural
So:
- o professor cujos alunos...
- a professora cujas alunas...