Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O professor explicou‑me que “casa” é um substantivo muito frequente em português. - The teacher explained to me that “casa” is a very frequent noun in Portuguese.

In European Portuguese, when a verb comes first in the clause and there is no special word attracting the pronoun to the front, the unstressed object pronoun (like me) normally goes after the verb and is joined with a hyphen:

O professor explicou‑me… (European standard)
O professor explicou‑te…
O professor explicou‑lhe…

This pattern is called ênclise (pronoun attached after the verb).

In Brazilian Portuguese, speakers normally prefer proclise (pronoun before the verb):

O professor me explicou… (more natural in Brazil)

So:

explicou‑me = European norm
me explicou = common in Brazil; in European Portuguese it’s heard, but in formal language explicou‑me is preferred.

The hyphen is obligatory in writing when the pronoun is attached after the verb: explicou‑me, disse‑me, mandou‑me, etc.

Why do we say O professor with O? In English we don’t say “The teacher explained me…”.

Portuguese uses definite articles much more than English, especially:

with professions
with people’s titles or roles
with some proper names

So:

O professor explicou‑me…
≈ “The teacher explained to me…” or just “The teacher explained…”

You could say simply O professor if both speaker and listener know which teacher they’re talking about (a specific one).

If you wanted to talk about teachers in general, you’d drop the article:

Professor trabalha muito. – A teacher works a lot / Teachers work a lot.

In this sentence, O professor clearly means “that particular teacher we both know”, so the article O is natural.

What exactly is the function of que here? Can it be left out like “explained (that) ‘house’ is…” in English?

Here que is a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause:

O professor explicou‑me que …
= “The teacher explained to me that …”

In Portuguese, this que is normally not optional in standard language. You’d keep it:

Ele disse que vinha. – “He said (that) he was coming.”
Ela explicou que não podia. – “She explained (that) she couldn’t.”

Leaving que out, as in ✗ O professor explicou‑me “casa” é um substantivo…, sounds wrong in standard Portuguese, even though it might occasionally appear in colloquial speech. So here que is required.

Why is it um substantivo (masculine) and not uma, since casa is feminine?

The article agrees with the noun it actually belongs to, which is substantivo, not casa.

substantivo is a masculine noun → um substantivo
casa (the example word) happens to be feminine, but it’s just being mentioned, not determining the article.

Think of the structure:

“casa” é um substantivo …
“casa is a noun …”

We’re saying what casa is; the phrase um substantivo muito frequente is a predicate describing casa. Inside that phrase, agreement works as usual:

um (masc. sing.)
substantivo (masc. sing.)

If the predicate noun were feminine, you’d see uma:

“mesa” é uma palavra feminina. – palavra is feminine → uma.

Why is casa in quotation marks? Is that a special use?

Yes. The quotation marks show that we’re talking about the word itself (casa) as a linguistic item, not about an actual house.

This is very common in both English and Portuguese when discussing language:

A palavra “casa” é muito frequente.
O verbo “ser” é irregular.
“Ontem” é um advérbio.

Instead of quotation marks, you might also see italics or bold in some styles:

A palavra casa é muito frequente.
A palavra casa é muito frequente. (with formatting)

So here the quotes around casa are just a typographical way to highlight that this is the word being analyzed.

Why isn’t português capitalized? In English we write “Portuguese”.

In Portuguese, names of languages are written with a lowercase initial letter:

português
inglês
francês
espanhol

Only the nationalities and some other proper adjectives derived from place names can be capitalized when used as proper adjectives in certain contexts (e.g. in names of institutions), but languages themselves stay lowercase in normal usage.

So:

Ele fala português. – “He speaks Portuguese.”
Um dicionário de português. – “A Portuguese dictionary.”

That’s why em português is lowercase.

Could it be em o português or no português instead of em português?

Normally, when you talk about a language in general, you don’t use an article in Portuguese:

em português – in Portuguese
em inglês
em alemão

The form em o contracts to no:

em + o = no
em + a = na

But you would only use no/na if there is actually an article. With languages in a general sense, there usually isn’t:

Esta palavra existe em português. – correct
✗ Esta palavra existe no português. – sounds odd unless you have a very specific context (e.g. “in (the) Portuguese (language as opposed to another specific system)” in a technical linguistic discussion).

So in your sentence, em português is the natural choice.

Why is é in the present tense after explicou‑me, which is in the past? Could it be era?

Portuguese, like English, often uses the present tense for facts that are still true now, even when the main reporting verb is in the past:

Ele explicou‑me que “casa” é um substantivo muito frequente. – He explained to me that “casa” is a very frequent noun (and it still is).

If you said:

Ele explicou‑me que “casa” era um substantivo muito frequente.

this could suggest the situation was true at that time, but may not necessarily be being presented as a timeless fact (it can sound slightly less “universal”).

In grammar explanations and general truths, Portuguese strongly prefers this “historic past + present fact” combination:

O professor disse‑me que o Sol é uma estrela.
Ela explicou‑nos que Paris é a capital de França.

So é is the most natural here.

What’s the difference between frequente and comum? Could I say muito comum instead of muito frequente?

Both are possible, but they have slightly different flavors:

frequente – literally “frequent”; often used for things that occur a lot (appear often, happen many times).
comum – “common”; often used for things that are widespread or not rare.

In the context of vocabulary, both work:

“casa” é um substantivo muito frequente em português.
“casa” é um substantivo muito comum em português.

Subtle nuance:

muito frequente slightly emphasizes how often the word appears in real usage.
muito comum slightly emphasizes that it’s not rare / familiar to everyone.

In everyday speech, muito comum is very natural; in a more technical or corpus-based linguistic comment, muito frequente also sounds good.

Is substantivo the usual word for “noun” in Portugal, or do people say something else?

Both substantivo and nome are used in European Portuguese, but there’s a traditional school-grammar preference:

Many school grammars and teachers in Portugal use nome for “noun”:
- nome comum
- nome próprio
- nome coletivo

However, in more technical or linguistic contexts, and in many grammar books, substantivo is also very common, and everybody understands it.

So your sentence with um substantivo muito frequente is perfectly correct. A teacher in a Portuguese primary school might instead say:

O professor explicou‑me que “casa” é um nome muito frequente em português.

Could we omit ‑me and just say O professor explicou que “casa” é um substantivo…? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, you can omit ‑me, but it does change the nuance:

O professor explicou‑me que…
– The teacher explained to me that…
O professor explicou que…
– The teacher explained that… (no recipient specified).

In Portuguese, explicar can appear with or without an indirect object:

Ele explicou‑nos a regra. – He explained the rule to us.
Ele explicou a regra. – He explained the rule (no mention of who heard it).

So your original sentence explicitly says the explanation was given to the speaker. Removing ‑me makes it neutral about who received the explanation.

How do you pronounce explicou‑me and frequente in European Portuguese?

Approximate European Portuguese pronunciation (very roughly indicated):

explicou‑me → /ɨʃ‑pli‑ˈko‑mɨ/
- initial e → a very reduced sound /ɨ/ (similar to an unstressed “uh”)
- x → /ʃ/ as in “she”
- stress on -cou → expliCÔU
- ‑me → reduced /mɨ/, very short and weak
frequente → /fɾɨ‑ˈkwẽt(ɨ)/
- fre‑ → /fɾɨ/ (again reduced vowel /ɨ/)
- que → /k/ + /wẽ/ (nasalized “en”)
- stress on ‑quen‑ → freQUENte
- final ‑te often has a very light /t/ and a very reduced vowel, sounding almost like /t/ alone in fast speech.

These are approximations; real European Portuguese reduces many unstressed vowels more than English speakers expect.