Breakdown of A nossa filha está na escola.
estar
to be (temporary / location)
a escola
the school
na
in the / on the / at the (f.sg)
a filha
the daughter
nosso
our (m/f/pl: nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas)
Questions & Answers about A nossa filha está na escola.
Why is there an A at the beginning of the sentence? We do not say "The our daughter" in English.
In European Portuguese, it is generally mandatory to use a definite article like o or a (the) before a possessive word. Since filha is a feminine word, we must put the feminine article a before nossa.
Why is the word for "our" nossa here instead of nosso?
Possessive words must match the gender of the thing being owned, not the gender of the owners! Even if a father is speaking, he uses nossa because the noun it describes, filha (daughter), is feminine.
Why does this sentence use está instead of é for "is"?
Where does the word na come from before escola?
The word na is a mandatory combination of the preposition em (in/at) and the feminine article a (the). While we say "at school" in English, Portuguese usually requires the article here, effectively saying "at the school" (em + a = na).
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