Chapter 1 · Who's Talking: Pronouns, Ser and Estar
Lesson 01-01 · about 5 minutes

Subject pronouns: eu, você, a gente…

Goal: Know which words Brazilians use for I, you, he, she, we, and they — and which verb form each one takes.

The pronouns

In Rio de Janeiro, a final s is pronounced /ʃ/: nós /ˈnɔ(j)ʃ/, vocês /voˈse(j)ʃ/, eles /ˈe.liʃ/, elas /ˈɛ.lɐʃ/. In much of the Northeast, gente is /ˈʒẽ.ti/ rather than /ˈʒẽ.t͡ʃi/.

Three things that make Brazilian Portuguese easier

1. “You” is você, and it takes the same verb as he/she. Textbooks from Portugal teach tu for “you”, with its own verb ending. In most of Brazil, você is the normal word for “you” with anyone you’d address casually, and its verb looks exactly like the one for ele/ela. You will hear tu /ˈtu/ in some regions (for example Rio Grande do Sul and parts of the Northeast), often with the same verb form as você — so understand it, but you don’t need to produce it yet.

2. A gente is the everyday “we” — and it also takes the he/she verb. A gente literally means “the people,” but in conversation it means “we.” Both a gente and nós are correct; a gente is more common in speech, while nós dominates formal writing. Because a gente uses the same verb form as você, ele, and ela, it saves you a whole conjugation at the start.

3. Vocês takes the same verb as eles/elas. So in practice, Brazilian speech mostly uses just four verb forms: one for eu, one shared by você / ele / ela / a gente, one for nós, and one shared by vocês / eles / elas.

Here’s that pattern with falar (“to speak”) — you’ll study the endings properly in Chapter 2:

In conversation

• Eu sou do Japão./ˈew ˈso(w) du ʒaˈpɐ̃w̃/I'm from Japan.
• Você fala inglês?/voˈse ˈfa.lɐ ĩˈɡle(j)s/Do you speak English?
• Ela é minha amiga./ˈɛ.lɐ ˈɛ ˈmĩ.ɲɐ aˈmi.ɡɐ/She's my friend.
• A gente vai amanhã./a ˈʒẽ.t͡ʃi ˈvaj a.mɐ̃ˈɲɐ̃/We're going tomorrow.
• Vocês são daqui?/voˈse(j)s ˈsɐ̃w̃ daˈki/Are you (all) from around here?
• Eles moram em São Paulo./ˈe.lis ˈmɔ.ɾɐ̃w̃ ẽj̃ ˈsɐ̃w̃ ˈpaw.lu/They live in São Paulo.
• — Você mora aqui? — Moro, sim./voˈse ˈmɔ.ɾɐ aˈki/ — /ˈmɔ.ɾu ˈsĩ/"Do you live here?" "Yes, I do."

Don’t worry about the verbs yet — focus on who is speaking about whom.

Watch out

Mixed groups are masculine. Elas is only for groups made up entirely of women. One man in a group of ten women makes it eles.

Dropping the pronoun. Since the eu and nós verb forms are unique, Brazilians often leave those pronouns out: Moro aqui (“I live here”), Falamos inglês (“We speak English”). With você, ele, ela, and a gente, the verb form alone is ambiguous, so the pronoun is usually kept. When in doubt, keep it — it’s never wrong.

Being polite. With older people, customers, or in formal settings, Brazilians often say o senhor /u sẽˈɲoʁ/ (to a man) and a senhora /a sẽˈɲɔ.ɾɐ/ (to a woman) instead of você. The verb form is the same as with você: O senhor fala inglês?

Quick check