Breakdown of O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
Questions & Answers about O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
In European Portuguese, possessives (meu, minha, teu, sua, etc.) are usually used with a definite article:
- O meu trabalho = my job
- A minha casa = my house
So in Portugal, O meu trabalho atual é cansativo is the most natural version.
In Brazilian Portuguese, it is very common (and usually more natural) to drop the article and say:
- Meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
In European Portuguese you can sometimes drop the article, but it often sounds either more formal, poetic, or marked in some way. For everyday speech in Portugal, keep the article: O meu trabalho…
Meu and minha both mean my, but they must agree with the gender of the noun:
- meu = my (masculine singular)
- minha = my (feminine singular)
The noun trabalho is masculine, so you must use meu:
- o trabalho → o meu trabalho
If it were a feminine noun, like a casa (the house), you’d say:
- a minha casa (my house), not meu casa.
Both can translate to work / job, but they’re not identical.
trabalho is broader:
- can mean work in general (the activity or effort):
- O trabalho é importante. = Work is important.
- can also mean job:
- O meu trabalho é cansativo. = My job is tiring.
- can mean work in general (the activity or effort):
emprego focuses more specifically on employment / a job position:
- Perdi o emprego. = I lost my job.
- Estou à procura de emprego. = I’m looking for a job.
In this sentence, O meu trabalho atual é cansativo, both trabalho and emprego could work, but trabalho is very common and neutral.
In Portuguese, adjectives usually come after the noun:
- trabalho atual = current job
- carro novo = new car
- casa grande = big house
So O meu trabalho atual é cansativo follows the normal pattern:
noun (trabalho) + adjective (atual).
You might sometimes see an adjective before the noun, but that usually adds a nuance (emphasis, subjectivity, or a slightly different meaning). With atual, the default and most natural position is after the noun.
O meu atual trabalho é cansativo is grammatically correct, but in European Portuguese it sounds:
- more marked / stylized, or
- like you’re contrasting this job with a different one (e.g. the previous one).
The usual, neutral way to say my current job is tiring in Portugal is:
- O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
Putting atual before trabalho is possible but less common and carries a bit more emphasis or contrast.
Portuguese has two verbs for to be:
- ser (here: é) – for more permanent or inherent characteristics
- estar (here: está) – for temporary states or conditions
In O meu trabalho atual é cansativo, you’re describing a general, characteristic quality of the job: it is a tiring job in nature. That’s why ser is used: é cansativo.
If you said O meu trabalho atual está cansativo, it would suggest the job is unusually tiring at the moment, implying it’s not always like this. It’s understandable, but not the standard way to express the idea of a generally tiring job.
Cansativo is an adjective meaning tiring / exhausting.
In Portuguese, adjectives must agree with the gender and number of the noun:
- Masculine singular: cansativo
- Feminine singular: cansativa
- Masculine plural: cansativos
- Feminine plural: cansativas
Some examples:
- O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
- A minha rotina diária é cansativa.
- Os turnos noturnos são cansativos.
- As viagens longas são cansativas.
In the original sentence, trabalho is masculine singular, so you use cansativo.
Yes, that’s perfectly natural:
- O meu trabalho atual é muito cansativo. = My current job is very tiring.
The usual position for muito when it modifies an adjective is before the adjective:
- muito cansativo = very tiring
- muito caro = very expensive
- muito difícil = very difficult
So the structure is:
- [subject] + é + muito + [adjective]
- O meu trabalho atual é muito cansativo.
You can, but the meaning changes.
O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
Clearly means my current job is tiring.O trabalho atual é cansativo.
Sounds more like a general statement about some specific work (for example, “the work we’re doing now” or “the current work situation”), not explicitly “my job”.
If you want to clearly say it’s your job, keep meu:
O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
atual is an adjective meaning current / present:
- trabalho atual = current job
agora is an adverb meaning now:
- Estou a trabalhar agora. = I am working now.
You could say something like:
- O trabalho que tenho agora é cansativo. = The job I have now is tiring.
But O meu trabalho atual é cansativo is shorter, more natural, and sounds more like standard Portuguese.
O meu trabalho de agora is understandable but not idiomatic; it sounds awkward or non-native. Prefer:
- O meu trabalho atual é cansativo.
- or O trabalho que tenho agora é cansativo.
In European Portuguese:
trabalho roughly: trah-BA-lyu
- tra- like “truh” (but shorter)
- ba- stressed, similar to “ba” in “bar”
- -lho: the lh is like the lli in English million → lyu
atual roughly: uh-TWAL
- a- often reduced to a very short “uh” sound
- tual → twal (the t and u merge into a “tw” sound)
Spoken together, trabalho atual flows, and you don’t pause between them:
- trabalho atual → trah-BA-lyu-uh-TWAL (quite fast and compressed in natural speech).
In O meu trabalho atual é cansativo, there are no contractions such as do, da, no, na. Each word stays separate.
Contractions appear when certain prepositions combine with definite articles, for example:
- de + o = do
- do meu trabalho = of my job
- em + o = no
- no meu trabalho = at my job
If you changed the sentence, you could get a contraction:
- O meu trabalho atual é cansativo no inverno.
= My current job is tiring in the winter.
(em + o inverno → no inverno)
But in the original sentence, nothing needs to contract.