Learn how to use cujo in Portuguese – Portuguese relative pronouns

Learn how to use cujo in Portuguese

Welcome back to our series about Portuguese relative pronouns. Today you’ll learn how to use cujo in Portuguese

As you may know, we’ve been talking about Portuguese relative pronouns, lately. Guess what?! Today we are going to keep talking about it, but you’ll learn how to use cujo in Portuguese. Yeah, but this will be a faster episode. Because at this stage, I think you already know how it works. If not, please, try to listen to our podcasts about the relative pronouns “que” and “o qual”.

Portuguese Basic Tips about the relative pronoun que

Portuguese Basic Tips about the relative pronoun o qual

In any case, it doesn’t hurt to make a brief summary of this subject.

We generally use relative pronouns when we want to avoid the repetition of words in a sentence. So, instead of saying “esta é uma bola” (this is a ball) and “eu gosto desta bola” (I like this ball), we can say it altogether in a sentence, just by adding a relative pronoun: “esta é a bola de que gosto” (This is a ball that I like).

Today we are going to speak about the relative pronoun “cujo”. Again, you won’t find it so often in a daily conversation, if you are here in Brazil; but it is very common in written Portuguese. That’s why I think you should spend a few minutes with this episode.

The first thing you should know is that we use this pronoun with an idea of possession. That is, when something belongs to someone.

For instance:

O garoto cujo brinquedo é bonito está aqui. (The kid that has a beautiful toy is here – The kid whose toy is beautiful is here).

The second thing you should know about “cujo” is that you need to modify it, if you are talking about a feminine gender.

For instance:

A garota cuja boneca é bonita está aqui. (The girl whose doll is beautiful is here).

In this case, the word “boneca” (doll) is a feminine noun in Portuguese.

If we are talking about something in the plural form, we need to add the letter “s” to it.

For example:

A garota cujas bonecas são bonitas está aqui (The girl that has beautiful dolls is here)

Well, another thing you should know about it. As I said in previous episodes, you need to pay attention to what we call “verbal regency” – regência verbal – in Portuguese.

For exemple:

Aquela é a família de cuja casa todos gostam (That is the family whose house everyone likes).

Have you noticed that I used the preposition “de” in front of the relative pronoun (de cuja)? This happened because the verb “gostar” (to like) needs a preposition as a complement in Portuguese.

And the last thing you should know about it is that you’ll never use the relative pronoun “cujo” followed by an article in Portuguese.

For example: cujo o, cujos os, cuja a, cujas as.

A garota cuja boneca é bonita – That’s correct!

A garota cuja a boneca é bonita – That’s wrong!

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See you next time.

Thanks

Marcos Sales

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