Portuguese/Contents/Common Prepositions and Contractions

Common Prepositions and Contractions
Prepositions are words that describe location, for instance, 'at', 'of' etc.

However, unlike in English, some of these "contract". That means they join other words to form new words, not always in a facilitative way.

Some contractions are viewed as obligatory:


 * those with the personal pronouns (ele, ela, etc...)
 * those with the demonstrative pronouns/adjectives (esse, aquele, etc...)
 * those with the direct objects (o, a, etc...)
 * those with adverbs of place (onde, aqui, etc...)

Others are viewed as optional and their frequency of use depends on the speaker's dialect.

Attention: in the formal written language, when the preposition "de" is part of an expression or infinitive construction (such as: apesar de, a fim de, por causa de, etc...), it's never contracted, as it is considered part of that construction. Examples:


 * apesar de ele estar feliz, eu não estou
 * (even though he's happy, I'm not)


 * por causa de isso nunca melhorar, estamos tristes
 * (because this never gets better, we are sad)

This rule is pratically ignored in speech by most speakers. Here are the prepositions and their contractions with articles, pronouns, adverbs, etc...

Note: contractions which are colloquial-only don't have standard forms, those written here are the variations most used by the speakers themselves.