I saw that “au” comes before “Portugal”. But, “au” means “the”, doesn't it? Should then “the” come before “Portugal”?
Also, when do we use “aux”?
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2Back ticks are meant to be used around (computer) code. You should not use them in other context — especially as they can make reading pages harder for some people. There are few reasons to use it on the French stack exchange. – Édouard Jun 7 '14 at 16:49
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2Also, no need to write thanks. They don’t really match the “question/answers” format of stack exchange. Thank people answering by up voting their answers. – Édouard Jun 7 '14 at 17:22
“Au” does not mean “the”*. “Le” (or “la”, or “l’”, or “les”) means “the”. “Au” is the contraction of *“à le” (*“à le” is grammatically incorrect). Similarly, “aux” is the contraction of *“à les”.
In French, the name of a country is indeed preceded by an article. We say “la France, le Portugal, l’Allemagne, les Pays-Bas”. Thus, whenever “le Portugal” is preceded by “à” (which has various meanings), it becomes “au Portugal”; similarly, when “les Pays-Bas” is preceded by “à”, it becomes “aux Pays-Bas”.
Note, however, that when countries which are feminine1 and singular are preceded by “à”, it becomes “en”: “en France, en Allemagne”. This only occurs with names of countries or regions.
- Or masculine but begin with a vowel sound.
