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O exame seguinte vai ser difícil.

O exame seguinte vai ser difícil.
The next exam is going to be difficult.

Breakdown of O exame seguinte vai ser difícil.

ser
to be
ir
to go
o exame
the exam
difícil
difficult
o
the
seguinte
next
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Questions & Answers about O exame seguinte vai ser difícil.

Why is there an O before exame seguinte?

In Portuguese, singular countable nouns almost always take a definite article.
O exame seguinte literally means “the following exam.” Omitting O would sound odd or ungrammatical in normal speech.

Why does seguinte come after exame and not before?

Most descriptive adjectives in Portuguese follow the noun they modify.
So you say exame seguinte rather than seguinte exame. Placing adjectives before the noun is possible for emphasis or style, but the default order is noun + adjective.

What’s the difference between exame seguinte and próximo exame?

Both can translate as “next exam,” but there’s a slight nuance:

  • próximo exame (adjective before noun) often implies “closest in time or space.”
  • exame seguinte (adjective after noun) stresses “the one immediately following this one.”
    In many contexts they’re interchangeable, though próximo exame is more common in everyday speech.
Why is vai ser used here instead of será?

Portuguese offers two main ways to express the future of “to be”:

  • Periphrastic future: vai ser (using the present of ir
    • infinitive) is very common in spoken and informal Portuguese.
  • Synthetic future: será (the simple future tense) is more formal or literary.
    Saying vai ser difícil sounds more conversational than será difícil.
Can I say vai a ser instead of vai ser?

In some European Portuguese dialects you might hear vai a ser, but the standard periphrastic future uses vai ser without a.
Using vai a ser difícil isn’t wrong in very casual speech, but you’ll see vai ser difícil almost everywhere.

Why doesn’t difícil change its form after exame seguinte?
Adjectives ending in -l (like difícil) are the same for masculine and feminine in the singular. They only add -es in the plural (→ difíceis). Since exame seguinte is singular, difícil remains unchanged.
What does the accent on the í in difícil indicate?

The acute accent marks two things:

  1. It shows that the syllable dí- is stressed.
  2. It indicates an open vowel quality.
    Without that accent Portuguese orthography would misplace the stress and misrepresent the vowel sound.