Há uma emergência no hospital.

There is an emergency at the hospital.

Breakdown of Há uma emergência no hospital.

• em: at
• uma: a
• o hospital: the hospital
• a emergência: the emergency

Questions & Answers about Há uma emergência no hospital.

What does há mean in há uma emergência no hospital?

Há is the third-person singular of the impersonal verb haver, used to express existence. In this context, há = “there is” (or “there are”).

Could we say tem uma emergência no hospital instead of há uma emergência no hospital?

Yes. Tem (from ter) also means “there is/there are” in colloquial Portuguese.

• Há uma emergência no hospital sounds slightly more formal or neutral.
• Tem uma emergência no hospital is more informal, very common in speech.

What does no stand for in no hospital?

No is the contraction of the preposition em (“in”) + the masculine definite article o (“the”). So no hospital literally means “in the hospital.”

Why is the word uma placed before emergência?

Portuguese normally requires an article before a singular, countable noun. Uma is the feminine singular indefinite article (“a/an”). Since emergência is feminine, we use uma emergência = “an emergency.”

Why does emergência have an accent on the é?

The acute accent on é marks both stress and vowel quality:

• It shows that the second syllable is stressed (e-MER-gência).
• It indicates an open /ɛ/ sound.
  Without the accent, spelling rules would not place stress on that e.

Can I drop uma and say há emergência no hospital?

You might see há emergência no hospital in headlines or very brief announcements (it feels more like a newspaper title). In regular speech, adding uma is more natural and clearer: há uma emergência no hospital.

How do you pronounce há compared to the article a?

• Há (verb) is stressed and pronounced [a], a clear open vowel.
• The article a (feminine) is usually unstressed in European Portuguese and often sounds like a reduced [ɐ].
  Context and stress help distinguish them.

What other contractions of em + article should I learn besides no?

Portuguese contracts em + the definite article in four ways:
• no = em + o (masculine singular)
• na = em + a (feminine singular)
• nos = em + os (masculine plural)
• nas = em + as (feminine plural)