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-Ologias and other friends

© Anne Duguid

In last week's article on Numerologia, we saw that " -ologies" were easy to translate from English to Portuguese. They just become -ologias (olo-sheeas).

Other endings too often have similar relationships to their English equivalent. The most obvious example may be the " -onomies". Hence:
Economy becomes economia (econo-meea)
Astronomy becomes astronomia

The adjectives, economical, astronomical are also formed in related fashion, economico, astronomico . Look out for more patterns we can share to build up lists of useful friends.

The English "-tion" sound is usually translated into Portuguese as -cao .This sounds like a nasalised lady pig. Hold the tip of your nose and say "sow". Hence:

Station becomes estacao
Nation becomes nacao
Navigation becomes navegacao
Section becomes secao
Sanction becomes sancao.

All these nouns and all nouns with this ending are feminine. Think of some more words ending in "-tion". Look them up. Check that they follow this pattern. Add them to your vocabulary book. Let us know of the new ones you find.

Words ending in -cao make their plural by changing the ending to -coes. A lesson, uma licao would therefore become duas licoes when we talk about two lessons.

English adjectives ending in "-ible", in Portuguese become --ivel (eevil). So, horrid, horrible become horrivel and terrible becomes terrivel.

So, if you want to say " How awful! ", you say "Que terrivel!"

Watch out for false friends though. Sensivel means sensitive while suscetivel can mean touchy.

Sensible is in Portuguese sensato, de bom senso or as in reasonable it becomes razoavel.

Unreasonable is insensato. But not all -un prefixes are formed with -in in Portuguese. There are many which use the prefix -des.

So, desmaiado means unconscious
desnecessario means unnecessary
despercebido means unnoticed

Over to you. What patterns have you found to help with your vocabulary learning? Share them through our discussion board.

Remember the best way of learning is said to be through teaching. Anything you find useful to help with your language learning could be the key to unlocking someone else's potential ability.

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