Questions & Answers about A paz é importante.
Portuguese often uses the definite article with abstract nouns more naturally than English does.
So a paz is literally the peace, but in a sentence like this it means peace in a general sense.
The article also tells you that paz is:
- feminine
- singular
So even though English would usually leave the article out, Portuguese commonly includes it here.
In Portuguese, noun gender is not determined only by the ending.
It is true that many feminine nouns end in -a, but not all of them do. Paz is simply a feminine noun, and you learn that from usage and from the article: a paz.
Other feminine nouns also do not end in -a, so this is a good reminder that gender must often be learned with the noun itself.
The accent is important because é and e are different words.
- é = is
- e = and
So the accent helps distinguish the verb form from the conjunction.
It also shows the stressed vowel sound. In Brazilian Portuguese, é is pronounced like eh, clearly stressed.