Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O vento norte é frio no inverno.

In Portuguese we almost always use a definite article before a noun, even when making general statements.
• O is the masculine singular article “the.”
• English often drops “the” with general nouns (“North wind is cold…”), but Portuguese keeps it.

Why isn’t norte introduced by do (i.e. vento do norte)?

Here norte functions like an adjective meaning “north,” so no preposition is needed.
• vento norte = “north wind.”
• You can also say vento do norte, literally “wind of the north,” and it’s common in everyday speech. Meteorological reports often use the shorter vento norte.

What does the no in no inverno stand for?

no is a contraction of the preposition em (“in”) + the article o (“the”).
• em + o inverno → no inverno = “in the winter.”

Why is inverno masculine and why do we include the article?

All season names in Portuguese are masculine nouns: o inverno, o verão, o outono, o inverno.
They normally appear with the definite article, especially in time-expressions like no inverno, no verão.

Why is the adjective frio placed after the verb é instead of directly after vento?

This is a predicate adjective construction:
• vento norte (subject) + é (copula “is”) + frio (adjective).
In Portuguese, adjectives that follow ser/estar almost always come after the verb. If you wrote vento frio, you’d be attributing “cold” directly to “wind” in a noun phrase.

Can I make this sentence plural to talk about “winds”?

Yes. You’d say:
• Os ventos norte são frios no inverno.
or, more literally,
• Os ventos do norte são frios no inverno.
Here os is the plural article, ventos is the plural of vento, and são is “are.”

How do you pronounce “vento norte é frio no inverno” in European Portuguese?

A reasonable phonetic approximation is:
[ˈvẽ.tu ˈnɔɾ.tɨ ɛ ˈfɾi.u nu ĩˈvɛɾ.nu]
• “vẽ” has a nasal ẽ,
• final o often sounds like [u],
• word-internal r is a tapped [ɾ],
• final e in norte is [ɨ].essions