Plural Endings to Portuguese Nouns Ending in -ão

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Nouns ending in the nasal diphthong ‘-ão’ are quite common in Portuguese. While one might assume these nouns form their plural by simply adding an ‘s’—resulting in ‘-ãos’—this is not the most frequent plural pattern. In fact, in most cases, the plural spelling will be different.

Here are the plural forms of Portuguese nouns ending in ‘-ão’. Notice that the first pattern is the most common.

ões /õjʃ/  

Examples:

0:00
  • situação → situações
  • cartão → cartões
  • união → uniões
  • …

ães /ãjʃ/ 

0:00
  • pão → pães
  • cão → cães
  • alemão → alemães
  • …

aõs /ãwʃ/ 

0:00
  • mão → mãos
  • irmão → irmãos
  • órgão → órgãos
  • …

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