A questão é importante.

A is the feminine singular definite article, meaning the.

In Portuguese, articles are used more often than in English. So where English might sometimes say Question is important only in a headline or special style, normal Portuguese would say A questão é importante.

Here, a matches questão, which is a feminine singular noun.

Because questão is a feminine noun in Portuguese.

Portuguese nouns have grammatical gender, so they usually take either:

• o for masculine singular
• a for feminine singular

Since questão is feminine, it takes a:

• a questão
• not o questão

Usually, you learn the noun together with its article:

• a questão
• o problema
• a ideia

That is the safest habit.

Also, although many feminine nouns end in -a, not all do. Questão ends in -ão, but it is still feminine. So the best approach is to memorize the article with the noun.

Both can relate to the idea of a question, but they are not always used the same way.

• pergunta usually means a question someone asks
• questão can mean a question, but very often it means an issue, matter, or point

So depending on context, A questão é importante may sound more like:

• The issue is important
• The matter is important than just a simple spoken question.

É is the third-person singular form of the verb ser in the present tense.

It means is.

So the structure is:

• A questão = the issue / the question
• é = is
• importante = important

Together: A questão é importante.

The accent marks the stressed vowel and also helps distinguish it from e, which means and.

So:

• é = is
• e = and

That accent is important because it changes the word completely.

Portuguese has two main verbs for to be: ser and estar.

Here, é from ser is used because importante is describing an essential or general characteristic of a questão.

• A questão é importante = The issue is important.

If you said A questão está importante, that would sound unusual in most contexts, because importante is normally treated as a more inherent quality here, not a temporary state.

In Portuguese, adjectives often come after the noun.

So:

• questão importante = important issue

In this sentence, the adjective comes after the verb because it is part of the predicate:

• A questão é importante
• literally: The issue is important

That is the normal word order.

No. Importante stays the same for masculine and feminine.

So you can have:

• o assunto é importante
• a questão é importante

Some adjectives change:

• bonito / bonita
• claro / clara

But others, like importante, have the same form for both genders.

In normal Portuguese, that sounds incomplete or unnatural.

You would usually say:

• A questão é importante or
• Uma questão é importante, if you mean a question/an issue is important

Leaving out the article can happen in titles, notes, or very special styles, but not in standard everyday speech.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

kes-TAW̃

A few important points:

• qu before e sounds like k
• the stressed syllable is the last one: -tão
• ão is nasal, which is very common in Portuguese

A more approximate pronunciation in IPA is /kesˈtɐ̃w̃/ in Brazilian Portuguese.

The ending -ão is a nasal sound, one of the most recognizable features of Portuguese pronunciation.

In questão, the final part is not pronounced like a plain English ow. The vowel is nasalized, meaning some air flows through the nose while you say it.

For English speakers, it takes practice, but listening and repeating native audio helps a lot.

You could, but it sounds more literary, emphatic, or stylistically marked.

The normal, neutral way is:

• A questão é importante

Putting the adjective before the noun often changes the tone, and sometimes the nuance. So for a learner, the safest default is to keep importante after the noun unless you have a specific reason.

Yes. It follows a very common pattern:

article + noun + ser + adjective

For example:

• O livro é interessante.
• A cidade é grande.
• O problema é sério.
• A questão é importante.

This is one of the most useful sentence structures to learn early.