A aldeia fica ao norte de Lisboa.

The village is north of Lisbon.

Breakdown of A aldeia fica ao norte de Lisboa.

• Lisboa: Lisbon
• ficar: to be located
• a aldeia: the village
• ao norte de: to the north of

Questions & Answers about A aldeia fica ao norte de Lisboa.

Why is there a definite article before aldeia? Can’t we just say aldeia?

In Portuguese, singular countable nouns normally take a definite article when you’re referring to something specific. Here a aldeia means “the village.” If you wanted to say “a village” in general, you’d use the indefinite article uma aldeia.

What does ao in ao norte mean?

Ao is a contraction of the preposition a (“to/at”) + the masculine definite article o (“the”). So ao norte literally means “to the north (the north).”

Why is there de before Lisboa, and why isn’t it contracted to da Lisboa?

We use de to mean “of”/“from” when indicating position relative to something—here, “north of Lisbon.” Proper names like Lisboa usually don’t take a definite article in Portuguese, so de remains unchanged. You only get da (de + a) or do (de + o) when the noun that follows normally has an article.

Could we say A aldeia está ao norte de Lisboa instead of fica?

Yes. Ficar here means “to be located,” so fica is common for places. Estar also works: A aldeia está ao norte de Lisboa. The nuance is small—ficar emphasizes the idea of “being situated,” while estar is the general verb “to be.”

What’s the difference between ao norte de Lisboa and no norte de Lisboa?

Ao norte de Lisboa means “to the north of Lisbon” (outside or beyond Lisbon’s boundary).
No norte de Lisboa uses no (em + o) and means “in the northern part of Lisbon.” You’d use no norte de Lisboa if you were talking about some neighborhood inside Lisbon’s northern area.

Why is norte lowercase here? Shouldn’t cardinal directions be uppercase?

In Portuguese, cardinal points (norte, sul, este, oeste) are lowercase when used as simple directions or adverbs (e.g., a sul, ao norte de). You only capitalize them when they’re part of an official region name (e.g., o Norte — the administrative region).

How is aldeia pronounced? And what about Lisboa?

Aldeia: [aɫˈdejɐ], roughly “ahl-DAY-uh,” with the stress on the -dei- syllable. The d before e or i sounds a bit like English “j.”
Lisboa: [liʒˈbɔɐ], roughly “leez-BO-uh,” with the stress on the second syllable and the s pronounced like the English “zh.”

Why is the verb fica ending in -a?

Fica is the third person singular of ficar in the present indicative. The subject is a aldeia (third person singular), so we use fica (“it is located”).