Questions & Answers about O Pedro é disciplinado.
In European Portuguese, it’s very common to use a definite article with people’s first names:
- O Pedro = literally the Pedro
- A Maria = literally the Maria
It doesn’t usually add a strong extra meaning; it’s just a normal way to talk about people:
- O Pedro é disciplinado.
- A Maria é simpática.
In English we normally drop the before names, but in Portuguese (especially in Portugal) using the article is natural in everyday speech.
You can say Pedro é disciplinado, and it’s not wrong at all.
The difference is mostly style and register:
O Pedro é disciplinado.
– Very natural in everyday European Portuguese.
– Common in speech and informal writing.Pedro é disciplinado.
– Feels a bit more neutral or formal.
– More common in written language (e.g. in biographies, news headlines, academic texts).
Both are grammatically correct; in Portugal, most people will tend to include the article in casual conversation.
Yes. É is the third-person singular form of the verb ser (to be):
- eu sou – I am
- tu és – you are (informal, singular)
- ele / ela é – he / she is
- o Pedro é – Pedro is
So in O Pedro é disciplinado, é means is.
The accent on é shows that:
- the vowel is stressed,
- and it’s pronounced as an open eh sound, not like the conjunction e (which means and and has a different sound).
Portuguese has two verbs that both translate to to be:
- ser – usually for inherent, permanent, or defining characteristics
- estar – usually for temporary states or conditions
With disciplinado:
O Pedro é disciplinado.
– Pedro is (by nature) a disciplined person.
– This is seen as part of his character.O Pedro está disciplinado.
– Pedro is being disciplined / is behaving in a disciplined way right now or in a particular period.
– It sounds like a temporary situation, perhaps unusual or context‑dependent.
In your sentence, é disciplinado describes a stable character trait, so ser is the natural choice.
Adjectives in Portuguese agree with the gender and number of the noun they refer to.
- Pedro is grammatically masculine and singular:
- masculine, singular adjective: disciplinado
If we talk about a woman:
- A Maria é disciplinada.
– feminine, singular: disciplinada
Plural examples:
- O Pedro e o João são disciplinados. (masculine plural)
- A Maria e a Ana são disciplinadas. (feminine plural)
- O Pedro e a Maria são disciplinados. (mixed group → masculine plural by default)
So disciplinado matches o Pedro in gender (masculine) and number (singular).
In this sentence, disciplinado is a predicative adjective (an adjective that comes after ser and describes the subject). The normal word order is:
[subject] + [verb ser] + [adjective]
→ O Pedro é disciplinado.
You can change the order for emphasis or style:
- Disciplinado é o Pedro.
– Possible, but unusual; it emphasizes disciplinado, almost like saying
– Disciplined – that’s Pedro.
In normal, neutral sentences describing someone, you keep the adjective after é.
You don’t always have to use the article with names. In European Portuguese:
- Everyday, informal speech: article is very common
– O Pedro é disciplinado. - More formal / written contexts (titles, lists, official documents, news headlines): article is often omitted
– Pedro é disciplinado.
You’d normally omit the article:
- in headings:
– Pedro é aluno aplicado. - in signatures or name lists:
– Pedro Silva - after certain prepositions in some fixed expressions (context‑dependent).
In casual spoken Portuguese in Portugal, using the article is the default with names.
Not exactly. Usage varies more in Brazilian Portuguese.
In European Portuguese (Portugal):
– Using the article with first names (o Pedro, a Maria) is very common in everyday speech.In Brazilian Portuguese:
– Some regions use the article with names a lot (especially in the south: o Pedro, a Ana).
– Other regions tend to drop it more often and just say Pedro, Ana.
So O Pedro é disciplinado will be perfectly natural in Portugal; in Brazil, whether it sounds natural depends on the region and the speaker’s style.
No, not in this sense.
O Pedro é disciplinado.
– Talking about a specific person you and your listener know: Pedro.Um Pedro would literally mean a Pedro, as if he were one example of a type of person called Pedro. In practice it sounds odd here and is rarely used with a single first name like this.
You might hear um Pedro in special contexts, for instance:
- Um Pedro como ele é raro.
– A Pedro like him is rare.
– Meaning “a person like Pedro”, “someone of his type”.
But as a normal way to say that Pedro is disciplined, you should use O Pedro, not Um Pedro.
Capitalization rules in Portuguese are similar to English:
- Proper names (people, cities, countries) are capitalized:
- Pedro, Maria, Lisboa, Portugal.
- Articles, adjectives, and verbs are not capitalized in the middle of a sentence:
- o, é, disciplinado.
So the capitalization in O Pedro é disciplinado. follows standard rules:
- O is capitalized only because it’s the first word of the sentence.
- Pedro is capitalized because it’s a proper name.
- é disciplinado stay lowercase.
They’re different:
é (from ser)
– Pronounced like an open eh sound, similar to the e in English bet.
– It carries an acute accent (´) to mark the stress and the vowel quality.
– It means is (he/she/it is).e (conjunction)
– Pronounced more like a very short, closed i sound, something like ee but very quick.
– It means and.
So O Pedro é disciplinado has é = is, with that open eh sound.