"Homens e mulheres são pessoas de gêneros diferentes."
Translation:Men and women are people of different genders.
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Interesting, as both come from the same Greek root γένος or genus meaning kind (or type, as in "what kind of thing is this"), which is also the root of gene, general, etc. Ideas of abstraction and biological propagation are all tied up together in it. Really fundamental concepts in any language.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the plural of "person" is "persons" (as in "persons of colour").
Oh, didn't know that... maybe a native English speaker could shed some light on this?
Persons is extremely formal. It is used mostly on maximum occupancy signs (Maximum occupancy: 228). People is more widely used and is pretty safe to use. If you say persons almost anywhere, you will probably get corrected.
"People" is the default way to say a group of human beings. If you want to emphasize their individuality, sometimes persons will be used for precision. (For example, in legal language, where you're referring to their individual choices and liability, not their action as a group, you'll often see a phrase like, "any person or persons, known or unknown"). I'm not sure if it's tied to the other use of "person," to mean someone's physical body: "Did the accused have the murder weapon on his person?"
So, "how many people are in your group" (waiter, trying to find you a table) and "there are a lot of people here" and "She's such a people person, she loves people, while I prefer the company of my dog"...but, "persons charged with a first offense for drunk driving are subject to the following penalties."
I'm having trouble remembering which words use a circumflex versus a grave accent. Is there any kind of general rule for when to use one instead of the other? I'm not seeing the pattern. Thanks!
Actually in EU PT the word is written género. Grave accent is i think used only in contractions as às = a+as.cirmumflex and acute É,etc indicate irregular stress . polícia without would be pronounced with stress on the final i. SecretÁria(secretary)as opposed to secretarIa (office) capital letters indicating stress on the vowel. Circumflex indicates closed stressed e as in você,acute é as in é(is) indicates open stressed e.. so those 2 accents help in pronunciation,i.e. follow pronunciation ,there is no grammatical rule when to put them. You have to learn them word by word Hope this helps a bit.
The accent tells you about the pronunciation, so it's easiest to remember it by saying the word out loud.
At least, that helps me :)
Why is the word "gêneros" translated as singular in the form of "kind", but plural in the form of "genders"?
....genero has both plural and singular in both cases (kind or gender).
Um gênero musical. Muitos gêneros musicais.