Learn Portuguese (Portugal): O meu irmão está desempregado.

O meu irmão está desempregado.

My brother is unemployed.

Breakdown of O meu irmão está desempregado.

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Questions & Answers about O meu irmão está desempregado.

Why do we use está instead of é here?

In Portuguese, employment status (like being unemployed) is treated as a temporary condition, so we use the verb estar (está). This can be tricky because actual professions use the permanent verb ser (for example, O meu irmão é médico).

Why is there an O before meu irmão?

In European Portuguese, you almost always need a definite article (o or a) before a possessive word like meu. Even though it translates literally as "The my brother", it is the natural and grammatically correct way to say "My brother".

How is the word desempregado built?

It is based on the noun emprego (job or employment). By adding the prefix des- (meaning "un-" or "without") and the adjective ending -ado, it becomes desempregado (unemployed).

If I were talking about my sister, how would the grammar in this sentence change?

The whole sentence would need to agree in the feminine form: A minha irmã está desempregada. Notice how the article (A), the possessive (minha), the noun (irmã), and the adjective ending (desempregada) all change to match.