The Portuguese calendar has several holidays and holiday periods throughout the year. Holiday can have two meanings in Portuguese:
- o feriadoholiday – A public holiday, or day to celebrate something of specific cultural or religious importance at a local or national level.
- as fériasholiday, holidays, vacations – A planned period of time off work or school. Férias are often scheduled around important feriados.
Some of the Main Holidays in Portugal
Date Format
In Portuguese, the structure of dates is dia de mês de ano (day of month of year), and the numbers are typically cardinal, not ordinal. That means that you say um de janeiroJanuary one instead of primeiro de janeiroJanuary first . You may have also noticed that the names of the months and days of the week are not capitalized in Portuguese, as they are in English.
In written form, dates appear as dd/mm/yyyy or dd/mm/yy. Talking about holidays is a great way to practice saying dates and memorizing the days of the week and the months:
O desfile de Carnaval é na próxima terça-feira à tarde.The Carnival parade is next Tuesday afternoon.
O domingo de Páscoa é esta semana. Boa Páscoa!Easter Sunday is this week. Happy Easter!
Houve fogo de artifício na noite de 10 de junho.There were fireworks on the evening of June 10.
I really appreciate the cultural, religious and other Portuguese facts provided in these sections. They help with understanding Portugal’s way of life, and the translations as stated give good opportunity to discuss with local Portuguese people.
I am loving the units and shorties. I highly recommend my fellow ex-pats to use this website.
Thanks again
I disagree with the use of the word ex-pat. We are immigrants plain and simple. The problem is that the word immigrant has connotations of poverty and desperation. We try to avoid this association with a linguistic slight-of-hand.
Ask the expats fleeing from the dictators and wars of South America, they understand.
Very useful
In Canada, we usually call periods away from work vacations, and holidays are the special days themselves. There is lots of crossover, however. To go on vacation, of course, involves travel.
Yes I think Canada and the U.S. treat the word “holiday” the same way, with it referring to a day when something specific is being celebrated, like a religious or national holiday, and “vacation” referring to the period of time when you’re off school/work (e.g. summer vacation) or traveling somewhere (e.g. going on vacation). In the UK, however, going on holiday could refer to any travel / time off, even if it’s not related to a particular special occasion.
You should probably add:
Good Friday
Freedom Day April 25
Labour Day May 1st
Corpus Christi Day
Assumption Day August 15
Republic Day October 5 – after all, in Funchal on Madeira, the main street is Rua 5 de Outubro
Thanks, good idea! I just added this to our to-do list. 🙂
Hi , “O desfile de Carnaval é na próxima terça-feira à tarde.” Can I say in this way “O desfile de Carnaval é na tarde da próxima terça-feira.”? Just like the format of “Houve fogo de artifício na noite de 10 de junho.”
Olá. Yes, both ways are grammatically correct! But the first option (próxima terça-feira à tarde) would be the most used.
Obrigado
Great to learn the difference between feriado and férias.
Thank you,
Stella
Date formats:
My electricity, water and telecomms. bills all have the format yyyy/mm/dd.
I still find that confusing. Is that a regional thing on Madeira or common practice for utility bills?
Should I still use dd/mm/yyyy in letters that I write myself?
Thanks.
Olá! Both formats (yyyy/mm/dd and dd/mm/yyyy) are used across the country. I don’t think there’s a common standard for utility bills; each supplier seems to adopt whichever format they prefer (my bills come all sorts of ways).
A very use feature would be to add a little microphone icon to all the audio clips where there are currently speaker and turtle icons. Clicking this icon would launch a window where a user could practice speaking the phrase just like the various speaking practice exercises that are included in the lessons. I do usually try repeating these phrases multiple times until I think I’ve got it close, but being able to record and test the accuracy of my efforts would be very helpful.
Really helpful and clear, as always! Thank you.
Is the immaculate conception a national holiday? (December 8)
Olá! Yes, Imaculada Conceição is a national holiday!