Breakdown of Eles estão a criar um poema novo.
eles
they (m)
novo
new / young
um
a / an / some (all forms)
estar
to be (temporary / location)
Questions & Answers about Eles estão a criar um poema novo.
How do we form "are creating" in this sentence?
The word poema ends in 'a'. Why does it use the masculine word um instead of uma?
While most Portuguese words ending in 'a' are feminine, words ending in -ma are often exceptions because they originally come from Greek. Poema is a masculine noun, so it takes the masculine article um (a). You will also see this tricky rule with common words like um problema (a problem) or um sistema (a system).
Why is it poema novo instead of novo poema, and why doesn't the adjective end in 'a'?
In Portuguese, descriptive adjectives usually come right after the noun, so novo (new) follows poema. Because poema is a masculine noun, the adjective must also match and be in its masculine form (novo). It does not matter that poema happens to end with the letter 'a'!
I have seen words like criando for "creating". Why don't we use that here?