Questions & Answers about Os irmãos gostam dos aviões.
Why is it dos aviões instead of just os aviões?
In Portuguese, the verb gostar (to like) always needs the preposition de right after it. You can think of it as saying "to like of something". Because we are talking about the airplanes (os aviões), the word de combines with os to form the contraction dos.
Both irmão (brother) and avião (airplane) end in -ão. Why are their plurals different (irmãos vs. aviões)?
Words ending in -ão in the singular do not all share the same plural rule. Some just take an -s (like irmão becoming irmãos), some change to -ões (like avião becoming aviões), and a few change to -ães (like cão becoming cães). You just have to memorize the correct plural ending when you learn a new -ão word!
Does os irmãos only mean "the brothers"?
How do I pronounce the -m at the end of gostam?
When a Portuguese word ends in -m, you don't close your lips like you do for an English "m". Instead, the -m just tells you to give the vowel before it a nasal sound. The -am ending in gostam sounds very similar to a nasal "ãw"!
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