A colisão aconteceu aqui.

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Breakdown of A colisão aconteceu aqui.

• acontecer: to happen
• a colisão: the collision

Questions & Answers about A colisão aconteceu aqui.

Why is there a at the beginning of the sentence?

A is the feminine singular definite article, meaning the.

So a colisão = the collision.

In Portuguese, articles are used more often than in English. With a specific noun like colisão, you would normally keep the article.

Why is it a colisão and not o colisão?

Because colisão is a feminine noun in Portuguese, so it takes a, not o.

• a colisão = the collision
• uma colisão = a collision

This is something you usually have to learn with the noun itself, since grammatical gender in Portuguese does not always match what an English speaker expects.

Doesn’t -ão usually make a noun masculine? Why is colisão feminine?

A lot of -ão nouns are masculine, but -ão does not automatically mean masculine.

For example:

• o coração = the heart
• o avião = the airplane
• a mão = the hand
• a colisão = the collision

So the ending helps sometimes, but it is not a perfect rule. In this sentence, you can tell the gender from the article: a colisão.