Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Os cães e os gatos são animais bonitos.

Os cães e os gatos são animais bonitos.

Dogs and cats are beautiful animals.

Breakdown of Os cães e os gatos são animais bonitos.

Questions & Answers about Os cães e os gatos são animais bonitos.

How do you form the plural word animais?

The singular word is animal. In Portuguese, when a noun ends in the consonant -l, you generally drop the -l and add -is to make it plural. This is why animal becomes animais.

Why is the plural of dog cães instead of "cãos"?

Nouns ending in -ão have tricky plurals. Instead of following one simple rule, they can change to -ões, -ãos, or -ães. The singular word cão belongs to the -ães group, so it becomes cães. You just have to memorize these as you learn them!

Why does the Portuguese sentence say Os cães e os gatos when the English translation just says "Dogs and cats"?

In Portuguese, when you talk about things as a general category (like dogs and cats in general), you must use the definite article (o, a, os, or as). So, to say "Dogs" generally, you have to say Os cães.

Why does bonitos come after animais, and why does it end in -os?

In Portuguese, adjectives (describing words) usually come after the noun they describe. Because animais is a masculine plural noun, the adjective bonito must also change to its masculine plural form, bonitos, to match.