Breakdown of A ministra da educação fez um discurso diferente na assembleia municipal.
Questions & Answers about A ministra da educação fez um discurso diferente na assembleia municipal.
Portuguese has grammatical gender, and many job titles change form depending on whether the person is male or female.
- ministro = male minister
- ministra = female minister
So a ministra da educação tells you explicitly that the minister is a woman.
If it were a man, you’d say o ministro da educação.
In Portuguese, professions and titles are often used with a definite article when you’re talking about a specific, known person:
- a ministra da educação = the minister of education (a particular person)
- um ministro da educação = a minister of education (one among others / not specific)
Even if the person’s name were mentioned, you’d usually keep the article:
- A ministra da educação, Maria Silva, fez um discurso…
Using the article is the default in European Portuguese when referring to specific people with titles.
da is a contraction of de + a:
- de = of / from
- a = the (feminine singular)
- de + a → da
So:
- ministra da educação = minister of the education (literally)
In English we normally say Minister of Education, without the, but in Portuguese you almost always use the (a / o) in this kind of “of-phrase”:
- o ministro da saúde = the Minister of Health
- a ministra da justiça = the Minister of Justice
de educação (without the article) would sound incomplete or more abstract here; da educação is the normal, idiomatic form for the government post.
Portuguese capitalizes fewer nouns than English does.
- In English: Minister of Education, Department of Education
- In Portuguese: ministra da educação, ministério da educação (common nouns in normal text)
You only capitalize when you’re writing the official name of the institution, often with all key words capitalized:
- Ministra da Educação (official title)
- Ministério da Educação (Ministry of Education)
In an ordinary sentence talking about the role in general, educação is written in lower case.
fez is the 3rd person singular of fazer in the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past):
- fazer (to do / make)
- ele/ela fez = he/she did or he/she made
In context, fez um discurso means (she) gave / made a speech.
In European Portuguese, this simple past often corresponds to both:
- English simple past: she gave a speech
- English present perfect: she has given a speech (if the event is completed and relevant now)
Other tenses would change the meaning:
- fazia um discurso = she was giving / used to give a speech (imperfect, ongoing or habitual)
- tem feito discursos = she has been giving speeches (repeated over time)
The usual collocation in Portuguese is:
- fazer um discurso or proferir um discurso (more formal)
You might hear dar um discurso from learners or under some influence from English (to give a speech), but native usage strongly prefers fazer in this expression.
So:
- A ministra fez um discurso = The minister gave / made a speech.
- A ministra deu um discurso sounds odd or foreign to many speakers.
um is the indefinite article (a / an), o is the definite article (the).
- fez um discurso = she gave a speech (introducing new, not previously identified information)
- fez o discurso = she gave the speech (a specific one the listener already knows about)
In narrative, when you first mention something, you typically use um / uma; if you refer to it again later, you can switch to o / a:
- A ministra fez um discurso. O discurso foi muito polémico.
The minister gave a speech. The speech was very controversial.
In Portuguese, most adjectives normally follow the noun:
- um discurso diferente = a different speech
- uma casa grande = a big house
- um livro interessante = an interesting book
Some adjectives can go before or after the noun with a change in emphasis or meaning, but diferente almost always comes after.
Putting it before (um diferente discurso) would sound very literary or unnatural in everyday language, and is usually avoided.
na is a contraction of the preposition em (in, on, at) with the feminine singular article a (the):
- em + a → na
So:
- na assembleia municipal = in the municipal assembly
Similar contractions:
- em + o → no (e.g. no carro = in the car)
- em + as → nas
- em + os → nos
Using em without the article here (em assembleia municipal) would be unusual and sound incomplete in standard Portuguese.
Both structures exist, but they’re slightly different:
assembleia municipal = municipal assembly
- Here municipal is an adjective describing the type of assembly.
assembleia do município = assembly of the municipality
- Literally: “assembly of the municipality” (de + o → do)
In Portugal, Assembleia Municipal is the standard term for the local deliberative body (an official organ of local government). The common phrase is:
- a assembleia municipal (general reference)
- a Assembleia Municipal de Lisboa, etc. (official name, capitalized)
It depends on whether you’re talking about:
The institution as a proper name – then you usually capitalize:
- A Assembleia Municipal aprovou o orçamento.
An assembly of a municipality, in a general sense – then lower case is fine:
- Houve um protesto na assembleia municipal.
Your sentence can be read as a general description (hence assembleia municipal), but in real news contexts it often refers to a specific official body, where Assembleia Municipal would be capitalized.
Very approximate guides for European Portuguese (not Brazilian):
ministra ≈ mee-NEESH-truh
- ni like “nee” but shorter
- str cluster is clear: NEESH-tra
educação ≈ eh-doo-kah-SÃW
- final ão is a nasal sound (like saying “ow” through your nose)
- stress on ção
fez ≈ fesh (final z often sounds like sh in European Portuguese)
discurso ≈ dish-KOOR-soo
- sc before u is like sk, but here scu is a bit like “skoo” with a softer s/k blend
assembleia ≈ uh-sẽ-BLÉY-uh
- ass at the start is light, not like English “ass”
- ei is like “ey” in “they”
- the m before b nasalizes the preceding vowel slightly
municipal ≈ moo-nee-see-PAL
- stress on the last syllable: paL
These are approximations, but they should help you get close to European Portuguese pronunciation.