Question 1

How do we form "are creating" in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

To say someone "is doing" something right now in Portugal, we use the verb estar (to be) followed by the word a and the infinitive (original form) of the main verb. Here, we have estão (they are) + a + criar (to create) to make estão a criar (they are creating).

Question 2

The word poema ends in 'a'. Why does it use the masculine word um instead of uma?

Accepted Answer

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).

Question 3

Why is it poema novo instead of novo poema, and why doesn't the adjective end in 'a'?

Accepted Answer

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'!

Question 4

I have seen words like criando for "creating". Why don't we use that here?

Accepted Answer

Using verbs ending in -ndo (like estão criando) is the standard way to say "are creating" in Brazilian Portuguese. In European Portuguese, people almost always use the estar a + infinitive structure that you see in this sentence.

Eles estão a criar um poema novo.

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