How to translate from English to Portuguese

When we are starting to learn a new language, one thing can be very helpful: to be able to figure how to say something in that language. Knowing the correspondences between some suffixes in English and in Portuguese then can be very useful and help you to deduce some words in Portuguese.

But remember this does NOT happen every time! We have a lot of exceptions. So this is just an interesting perception to have when learning a new language.

Let’s learn some of these correspondences?

Correspondences

The suffix -ity , as in the word “creativity”, very often corresponds to -idade as in the word “criatividade“.

See more examples:

-ity	-idade
creativity	criatividade
insanity	insanidade
reality	realidade
activity	atividade

The suffix -ly , as in the word “slowly“, very often corresponds to -mente as in the word “lentamente“.

See more examples:

-ly	-mente
slowly	lentamente
wisely	sabiamente
quickly	rapidamente
curiously	curiosamente

The suffix -tion , as in the word “aviation“, very often corresponds to -ção as in the word “aviação“.

See more examples:

-tion	-ção
aviation	aviação
solution	solução
intention	intenção
emotion	emoção

The suffix -ist , as in the word “alienist“, very often corresponds to -ista as in the word “alienista“.

See more examples:

-ist	-ista
alienist	alienista
pianist	pianista
communist	comunista
journalist	jornalista

The suffix -er, as in the word “gardener“, very often corresponds to -eiro as in the word “jardineiro“.

See more examples:

-er	-eiro
gardener	jardineiro
engineer	engenheiro
butcher	açougueiro
baker	padeiro

The suffix -y, as in the word “biology“, very often corresponds to -ia as in the word “biologia“.

See more examples:

-y	-ia
biology	biologia
philosophy	filosofia
sociology	sociologia
dynasty	dinastia

We hope you have enjoyed this content! If you are interested in learning this in more detail, you can watch a full class on this topic here: