Breakdown of A explicação do professor é clara.
Questions & Answers about A explicação do professor é clara.
In Portuguese every noun has grammatical gender, usually masculine or feminine.
Explicação is a feminine noun, so it takes the feminine definite article a (a explicação).
If it were a masculine noun, you would use o instead, e.g. o texto (the text), o livro (the book).
Do is a contraction of de + o (of/from + the).
So do professor literally means “of the teacher”.
If you said de professor, it would sound incomplete or odd here; you normally need the article (o) before professor in this kind of phrase.
Yes.
A explicação do professor corresponds to “the teacher’s explanation” in English.
Portuguese usually uses de + article instead of the ’s possessive we use in English.
No, that word order is not natural in Portuguese.
The possessive phrase (do professor) normally comes right after the noun it belongs to:
- Correct: A explicação do professor é clara.
Putting do professor at the end sounds wrong or very strange in standard Portuguese.
Portuguese distinguishes between ser (é) and estar (está).
- Ser is used for more permanent or inherent characteristics: A explicação é clara (it is clear by nature / as a general quality).
- Estar is used for temporary or changing states: A explicação está clara would emphasise “is clear now / at this moment”.
In most neutral contexts, describing how good/clear a teacher’s explanation generally is, you use é.
Adjectives in Portuguese usually agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.
- Explicação is feminine singular, so the adjective is clara (feminine singular).
If the noun were masculine, you’d use claro instead, e.g. O texto é claro.
Everything that refers to explicação must agree in number (singular → plural):
- A explicação do professor é clara.
- As explicações do professor são claras.
Changes: - a → as (article)
- explicação → explicações (noun)
- é → são (verb)
- clara → claras (adjective)
You change professor (masculine) to professora (feminine), and the article in do/da must match:
- A explicação da professora é clara.
Here da = de + a (of + the [feminine]), so it literally means “of the (female) teacher”.
In standard Portuguese you generally should keep the article: A explicação do professor é clara.
Leaving it out (Explicação do professor é clara) usually sounds unnatural or like a headline style, not normal speech.
Portuguese uses definite articles much more often than English, especially with abstract nouns like explicação.
The neutral, usual order is explicação clara (noun + adjective), just describing the explanation as clear.
Clara explicação (adjective + noun) is possible but more literary or emphatic; it can sound like “a very clear / admirably clear explanation.”
Position of adjectives in Portuguese can slightly change the nuance, but explicação clara is what you’d normally say.
In European Portuguese, explicação is roughly:
- [ɨʃ-pli-kɐ-ˈsɐ̃w̃] (approx: “ish-plee-ka-SÃO”)
Key points:
- ex- before a consonant is often pronounced like “esh”: ex- → [ɨʃ].
- ç is always like English s in see.
- -ção is a nasal sound, similar to “sown” but nasal: [sɐ̃w̃].
The final -ão is one of the typical nasal diphthongs of Portuguese.
There are two special characters: ç and ã (in -ção).
- ç (c-cedilla) makes c sound like s before a, o, u. Without the cedilla, ca/co/cu would sound like k.
- ã (a with tilde) marks a nasal vowel. In -ção, the ã plus o gives the nasal diphthong -ão.
Together, -ção is pronounced like a nasal “são”.
Yes, the structure and words are the same: A explicação do professor é clara.
The main difference is pronunciation (Brazilian explicação sounds more like “es-plee-ka-SÃW”) and some regional accents.
Grammatically, it works in both European and Brazilian Portuguese.
Yes. You can say, for example:
- A explicação do João é clara. – João’s explanation is clear.
In European Portuguese it is very common to use the definite article with names (o João, a Maria), so you also contract de + o/a to do/da: do João, da Maria.