Portuguese 1.2.3. Punctuation and Uses of Written Accents

In general, Portuguese punctuation marks are used the same way as in English with few exceptions. In Portuguese, there are five written accents: acute ( ´ ), grave ( ` ), circumflex ( ˆ ), tilde ( ͂ ), and cedilla ( ¸ ).

Table of Contents

• Yes/No Questions in Portuguese
• Uses of Written Accents in Portuguese
• Abbreviations in Portuguese
• Level I – Basic

Yes/No Questions in Portuguese

In general, Portuguese punctuation marks are used the same way as in English. For instance, interrogation and exclamation marks are used in Portuguese at the end of a question or exclamation, such as “Como vai você?” (How are you?) and “Que pena!” (What a pity!).

Punctuation is also important to distinguish a question from a statement. For instance, the sentence “O café está quente” (The coffee is hot) is a statement. Adding question marks to end of the sentence “O café está quente?”makes it a question. This is how “sim” (yes) and “não” (no) questions are formed in Portuguese. Unlike in English, we do not use any auxiliary or reorder the sentence to form a question. Saying “Está o café quente?”is grammatically incorrect.

Uses of Written Accents in Portuguese

In Portuguese, there are five written accents: acute ( ´ ), grave ( ` ), circumflex ( ˆ ), tilde ( ͂ ), and cedilla ( ¸ ). Let us discuss each in more detail:

1. Acute ( ´ ): This written accent can be found on any of the five vowels: “a,” “u,” “i,” “o,” or “e.” It indicates that the syllable should be stressed, and when used with “a,” “e,” or “o,” it also indicates an open sound.
2. Circumflex ( ˆ ): The pointy hat-like accent can be used with any of the three vowels: “a,” “e,” or “o.” The circumflex indicates a closed sound and that the syllable should be stressed.
3. Tilde (  ͂  ): The tilde can only appear on the letter “a” or “o” to denote nasal pronunciation. e.g., “nação” /na-sãw/ (nation), “põe” /põy / (he/she puts), etc.
4. Grave ( ` ): The grave accent is often used to mark the contraction of two consecutive vowels, with the first vowel often being a preposition, e.g., “a” + “as” = “às” (at the). More details on this in Lesson 7 of this level.
5. Cedilla ( ¸ ): This accent is used uniquely with the letter “c” to denote a soft “s” sound even though the letter is followed by “a,” “o,” or “u,” e.g., “maça” (apple), “ação” (action), etc.

Abbreviations in Portuguese

The concepts behind the formation of acronyms and abbreviations in Portuguese are very similar to those in English.

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