Telling time and describing the weather are fundamental language skills in any language including Portuguese.
Telling the Time
In Portuguese, the verb “ser” (to be) is used in the third-person forms to describe time.
The singular form “é” is used for “one o’clock,” while other hours (from two to twelve o’clock) use the plural form “são.”
| É uma hora. | It’s one o’clock. |
| São três horas. | It’s three o’clock. |
| São onze horas. | It’s eleven o’clock. |
To ask what time it is, use the expression: “Que horas são?” meaning “What time is it?” in English. To ask “At what time …?”, we use “A que horas … ?”
Expressing Minutes
To express time in hours and minutes, we use the conjunction “e” (and), for example:
| São uma e trinta. | It’s one-thirty. |
| São cinco e vinte e quatro. | It’s five twenty-four. |
If you want to say it is minutes to a certain hour, e.g., “It’s five to ten,” use “para,” for example:
| São dez minutos para a uma. | It’s ten minutes to one. |
| São cinco para as dez. | It’s five to ten. |
The “15 minutes” and “30 minutes” can sometimes be replaced with “quarto” (quarter) and “meia” (half), respectively.
| São um quarto para a uma. | It’s a quarter to one. |
| São cinco e meia. | It’s five-thirty. |
Other Time Expressions
Here are some expressions that are used to express time with examples:
| da manhã | in the morning | It’s 9 a.m. São nove da manhã. |
| da tarde | in the afternoon | It’s 1 p.m. É uma da tarde. |
| da noite | in the evening at night | It’s 7 p.m. São sete horas da noite. |
| da madrugada | in the wee hours | It’s 4 a.m. São quatro da madrugada. |
| meio-dia | noon | It’s noon. É meio-dia. |
| meia-noite | midnight | It’s midnight. É meia-noite. |
| em ponto | sharp | It’s two o’clock sharp. São duas em ponto. |
| mais ou menos cerca de | around | It’s around three o’clock. São mais ou menos três horas. |
Weather Expressions
Describing the weather in Portuguese often involves the use of some idiomatic expressions that make little sense if translated into English literally. For example, the expression “Faz muito calor” translates literally to “It makes much heat.” However, it just means that it is too hot. Similarly, the expression “Há sol,” which means that the sun is shining, makes little sense when translated literally as “There is sun.”
Here we list a few common ways of describing the weather using some idiomatic expressions as well as other simple expressions.
Weather Expressions using the verb “fazer”
| Faz um céu nublado hoje. | It’s cloudy today. |
| Faz chuva. | It’s raining. |
| Faz (muito) frio. | It’s (too) cold. |
| Faz calor. | It’s hot. |
| Faz sol. | It’s sunny. |
| Faz vento. | It’s windy. |
Weather Expressions using the verb “haver”
The verb “haver” in the impersonal third-person form “há” means “there is/are” and is used in many weather expressions.
| Há sol. | The sun is shining. |
| Há lua. | The moon is out. |
| Há nuvens. | It’s cloudy. |
| Há nevoeiro. | It’s foggy. |
| Há neblina. | It’s misty. |
| Há umidade. | It’s humid. |
| Há trovões. | There is lightning. |
| Há granizo. | It’s hailing. |
| Há garoas. | It’s sprinkling. |
| Há um vendaval. | There is a windstorm. |
Weather Expressions using the verb “estar”
We can also use the verb “estar” in the third-person singular form followed by an adjective to describe the weather.
| Como está o tempo? | What’s the weather like? |
| Está ensolarado. | It’s sunny. |
| Está nublado. | It’s cloudy. |
| Está chuvoso. | It’s rainy. |
| Está escuro. | It’s dark. |
Weather Expressions using a simple verb
One can also use a simple verb expression in the third-person singular form, such as “chove,” the third-person singular form of the present tense of the verb “chover” (to rain). Other examples include:
| Chove. | It’s raining. |
| Neva. | It’s snowing. |
| Garoa. | It’s drizzling. |
| Troveja. | It’s thundering. |
Other lessons in Level III:
