A1 (Beginner)Lesson 2: Personal Pronouns & Basic Prepositions
Portuguese prepositions em, de, para, com, and por are small words that control relationships between everything in a sentence, contracting with articles and having multiple meanings that rarely match their English equivalents directly.
Em = in/on/at (location): em casa, no Brasil
De = of/from/about ('s): casa de João, sou de SP
Para = to/for (destination/purpose): para casa, para você
Com = with (together): com amigos, café com leite
Por = by/through/for (reason/path): por favor, pelo parque
Contractions are mandatory: de + o = do, em + a = na
Para becomes pra/pro in speech
Position changes meaning: pensar em vs. gostar de
Prepositions are the GPS of Portuguese – without them, nobody knows where anything is going, coming from, or why! You can't even order "café com leite" (coffee with milk) or say you're "de São Paulo" (from São Paulo) without them. Mix them up and instead of going "para casa" (home), you might say you're going "por casa" (around the house), confusing every Uber driver in Brazil. These five little words appear in literally every sentence – master them, and Portuguese suddenly clicks; ignore them, and you'll sound like you're speaking Portuguese with Google Translate!
preposition + article = contraction | em + o = no | de + a = da | para + o = pro (informal)
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"Em" tells you WHERE something is or happens.
in: em casa (at home)
on: em cima (on top)
at: em São Paulo (in São Paulo)
| em + | Result | Example |
|---|---|---|
| o | no | no Brasil (in Brazil) |
"Estou no trabalho" (I'm at work)
"Moro em Copacabana" (I live in Copacabana)
"Na segunda-feira" (On Monday)
"No verão" (In summer)
"Venho do Rio" (I come from Rio)
"A casa da minha mãe" (My mother's house)
"Gosto de pizza" (I like pizza)
"Perto da praia" (Near the beach)
Nobody says "para" in casual speech:
Written: "para o"
Spoken: "pro"
Super casual: "pa" (pá casa)
"Em" vs "de" for transport:
Vou de carro (I go by car - the means)
Vou no carro (I go in the car - specific car)
Both can be correct!
The contractions pelo, pela, pelos, pelas preserve the medieval preposition per ("through, by") that por eventually replaced as a standalone word. So when you say pela rua (down the street), you're using a fossil of older per la — a preposition that vanished from the language as an independent form but survived inside its contracted forms.
Sources: Wiktionary — pelo (etymology), Wiktionary — por (etymology).
Both prepositions descend from Latin prō ("for, on behalf of"). Por emerged through a sound shift influenced by Latin per, while para formed from the fusion prō + ad ("for + to"), which passed through medieval Portuguese as pora before settling into modern para. They split duty in modern Portuguese — para covers direction and purpose, por covers cause, path and exchange — but they're cousins from the same Latin starting point.
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