Na cidade

This is the session to have in your head when you step off the plane. It covers where you are going, how you get there, and what the person giving directions will say.

The places

cidade is city or town. centro is the centre, and o centro on a bus or a road sign means the town centre. rua is street, and estrada is a road between places rather than within one.

hotel, restaurante and loja are hotel, restaurant and shop. banco is a bank, and also a bench, which is the kind of homograph that stops being confusing the first time you sit on one.

estação is station, and it is also season: as quatro estações are the four seasons.

Getting there

carro is car. ônibus is bus, and it is the same in the singular and the plural: um ônibus, dois ônibus. European Portuguese says autocarro; in Brazil you will only ever hear ônibus.

trem is train, again the Brazilian word (Portugal says comboio). avião is aeroplane. The preposition for travelling by any of them is de: de carro, de ônibus, de avião. Walking is the exception, a pé, on foot.

caminho is the way or the route: no caminho is on the way.

Directions

perto is near and longe is far. Both take de before what they are near or far from: perto do hotel, longe da cidade.

esquerda is left and direita is right, both feminine because the word mão (hand) is understood: à esquerda, à direita. The accent on à marks a plus a, to the.

frente is front, and em frente is straight ahead, as well as opposite: em frente ao banco. atrás is behind, and it too takes de: atrás da estação.

The pattern

Almost every direction word in this list takes de before a noun, and de merges with the article: do, da, dos, das. Get that one habit right and directions stop being a grammar exercise.