Learn Masculine and Feminine Words in Portuguese

There is a rule that says:

If a word ends with “a” then it is feminine. If it ends with “o” it is masculine.

Example:

Casa = feminino

Apartamento = masculino

So we have:

the house = a casa

 the apartment = o apartamento.

So far so good. It’s easy, right? The problem is that there are many words that end neither with “a” nor with “o”, such as: jovem, aluguel and flor (young, rent and flower).

Another problem is that there are exceptions. That is, words that end with “a”, but are masculine, and that end with “o” and are feminine:

For example, the word “mapa” looks feminine but is masculine. So you should say “o mapa”, not “a mapa”. The word “mão” looks masculine but is feminine. So the correct thing is to say “a mão” and not “o mão”.