Possessives: meu/minha, seu/sua, nosso/nossa

• meu / minha = my · seu / sua = your · nosso / nossa = our

• Plural just adds -s: meus, minhas, seus, suas, nossos, nossas

• They agree with the thing owned, never with the owner

• For his / her / their, Brazil puts dele, dela, deles, delas after the noun

• de + ele = dele — an obligatory contraction, never de ele

• Dele/dela is the one form that shows the owner's gender

• The article is optional: o meu carro = meu carro

• a gente → da gente: "a casa da gente" = our house

Possessives decide who owns what, and Portuguese hands you one booby trap right at the start: seu officially means your, his, her and their, so "Vi o seu carro" could be an innocent remark or an accusation. Brazilians got tired of that and quietly reorganised the whole thing — seu for you, dele and dela for everybody else, parked politely behind the noun. Learn that split and you will never again have a conversation where two people are talking about two different cars.

It agrees with the thing, not the owner

English his and her tell you about the owner. Portuguese meu and minha tell you about the thing:

• minha casa (casa is feminine — and it stays minha whether the speaker is a man or a woman)

Family and people

• "Minha mãe mora em Recife." (My mother lives in Recife.)

• "Seu irmão trabalha com você?" (Does your brother work with you?)

• "O marido dela é professor." (Her husband is a teacher.)

• "Conheci os pais dele ontem." (I met his parents yesterday.)

Around the house

• "Esqueci meu celular na mesa." (I left my phone on the table.)

• "Nossa casa tem dois quartos." (Our house has two bedrooms.)

• "Nossos vizinhos são bem tranquilos." (Our neighbours are pretty easy-going.)

• "As chaves dela sumiram de novo." (Her keys have gone missing again.)

Body parts and clothes take the article, not a possessive

Portuguese leaves the possessive out where English insists on it — the owner is obvious:

• "Lavei as mãos." (I washed my hands.)

• "Quebrei o braço." (I broke my arm.)

• "Ela cortou o cabelo." (She cut her hair.)

• "Tirei o casaco." (I took off my coat.)

Saying lavei minhas mãos is not wrong, just oddly emphatic — as if the hands needed identifying.

The seu that isn't "your"

Two very common uses have nothing to do with owning anything:

• Seu João, Dona Maria — a respectful way to address someone by first name, closer to Mr. and Ms. than to your.

Nossa! — the exclamation you will hear more than any other in Brazil — is a possessive with its noun quietly removed: the full phrase is Nossa Senhora!, and the Lady in question is Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the country's patroness. She is not only a religious figure but a legal one: Lei 6.802 of 1980 made her feast day, 12 October, a national holiday. So Brazilians say "our" a few hundred times a day without owning a single thing. Sources: Brasileirices · Lei 6.802/1980, Planalto.