Basic question formation and responses

• Yes/no questions are easy: keep the statement, just raise your voice at the end — Você fala português? ↗

• No "do/does": Portuguese has no helper verb for questions.

• Tag questions: add né? or não é? to a statement — Você mora aqui, né? (You live here, right?)

• Answering: sim (yes), não (no), talvez (maybe) — or, very Brazilian, just repeat the verb: Tem? → Tem.

• Word order barely changes — the subject usually stays put.

• The full question words (o que, onde, quando…) get their own lesson next — here you just say hi to them.

Questions are how you get everything done — a coffee, directions, someone's name. Good news for an English speaker: Brazilian questions are easier than English ones. There's no do/does to wrestle with and no word juggling — you take a sentence you can already say and simply lift your voice at the end: Você fala inglês? ↗ Tack a friendly né? ("right?") onto a statement and you've asked a question without learning anything new. And when someone asks you something, you can answer like a local by echoing the verb — Tem? → Tem. — instead of a stiff sim.

1. Yes/no questions: just raise your voice

The most common Brazilian question is a statement said with a rising tone (↗) at the end. Nothing moves, nothing is added:

• Statement: Você fala português. (You speak Portuguese.)

• Question: Você fala português? ↗ (Do you speak Portuguese?)

It works with every verb you already know:

• Tem café? (Is there coffee?)

• Você está bem? (Are you OK?)

• Posso entrar? (Can I come in?)

• Vocês querem comer? (Do you all want to eat?)

2. No "do / does"

Yes/no questions (just raise your voice ↗)

• "Você fala inglês?" (Do you speak English?)

• "Tem café?" (Is there coffee?)

• "Você está bem?" (Are you OK?)

• "Posso entrar?" (Can I come in?)

• "A gente pode pagar aqui?" (Can we pay here?)

Tag questions (turn a statement into a question)

• "Você mora aqui, né?" (You live here, right?)

• "Ela é brasileira, não é?" (She's Brazilian, isn't she?)

• "Vocês trabalham juntos, certo?" (You work together, right?)

Answering without "sim" — echo the verb

Brazilians very often skip sim and just repeat the verb:

• "Tem café?" — "Tem." (rather than "Sim, tem.")

• "Você vai?" — "Vou."

• "Você gosta?" — "Gosto."
  This sounds warmer and more natural than a bare sim.

No "do/does"

English speakers keep reaching for a helper verb that isn't there:

• ❌ "Faz você querer café?"

• ✅ "Você quer café?"

Cadê você? That everyday Brazilian way to ask "where is…?" is a little linguistic fossil. Cadê comes from quede, a worn-down form of the old phrase "que é de…?" ("what has become of…?"), once used to ask where someone or something had got to. So every time you say cadê, you're quietly speaking centuries-old Portuguese.

Sources: Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa, Origem da Palavra