A1 (Beginner)Lesson 2: Personal Pronouns & Forms of Address
Brazilian Portuguese uses different ways to say "you" depending on region, distance, and formality. The most common form nationwide is vocĂȘ â and when you need to call out to a stranger, it's moço or moça.
vocĂȘ = the default singular "you" nationwide
tu = regional and informal (South, parts of the North/Northeast)
o senhor / a senhora = respectful, for elders, customers, officials
moço / moça = how you flag down a stranger or a waiter â no name needed
Seu / Dona + first name = warm, respectful everyday address
All of these take third-person verbs in Brazil, except in traditional tu falas areas
vocĂȘ / tu / o senhor / a senhora + verb
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Address forms shape politeness from the first line of a conversation. Choosing the wrong one does not always break communication, but it can make the tone feel off immediately.
Brazilian Portuguese has more than one way to say "you", and the choice signals how close, casual or respectful the relationship is. Nationwide, vocĂȘ is the one you can always fall back on.
The Southeast (SĂŁo Paulo, Minas, Rio) and most of the Centre-West use vocĂȘ by default â friends, family, kids and shop assistants all hear the same form.
VocĂȘ takes the third-person verb: VocĂȘ fala portuguĂȘs. (You speak Portuguese.)
VocĂȘs is the plural "you" everywhere in Brazil, formal and informal alike: VocĂȘs querem cafĂ©? (Do you all want coffee?)
In Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and parts of the North and Northeast, tu is normal in casual speech â usually with the third-person verb:
| Portuguese | Meaning | Where |
|---|
| Portuguese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| VocĂȘ Ă© brasileiro? | Are you Brazilian? |
| VocĂȘ mora aqui? | Do you live here? |
| VocĂȘs sĂŁo amigos? | Are you (plural) friends? |
| O senhor Ă© o Paulo? | Are you Paulo, sir? |
| A senhora Ă© a professora? | Are you the teacher, ma'am? |
| O senhor mora no Rio? | Do you live in Rio, sir? |
| A senhora Ă© de SĂŁo Paulo? | Are you from SĂŁo Paulo, ma'am? |
| Tu fala portuguĂȘs? | Do you speak Portuguese? (Brazilian colloquial: tu + 3rd-person verb) |
| Tu falas inglĂȘs? | Do you speak English? (traditional 2nd-person agreement) |
Don't bounce between vocĂȘ and o senhor / a senhora in the same conversation â it sounds inconsistent.
Tu falas, tu Ă©s and other second-person forms are correct on paper but rare outside parts of the Northeast and the South in everyday speech.
Don't open with vocĂȘ to get a stranger's attention â VocĂȘ, quanto custa? sounds abrupt. Use Ă moço / Ă moça (or com licença) instead.
Don't call a visibly older person moço / moça. That's where senhor / senhora belongs.
Seu Carlos takes the first name. Seu Silva (surname) is not how it works.
With strangers, customers, or anyone older than you, o senhor / a senhora is almost always the safer choice.
VocĂȘ is itself a contraction of medieval Vossa MercĂȘ, but the reduction kept going: in modern spoken Brazilian Portuguese, vocĂȘ frequently shortens further to cĂȘ in subject position ("CĂȘ tĂĄ bom?" instead of "VocĂȘ estĂĄ bem?"). Sociolinguistic studies treat this as the next stage of grammaticalization, with cĂȘ behaving more like a clitic than a full pronoun.
Sources: Zilles (2005), "The development of a new pronoun" â summary, Simon Fraser University, Wiktionary â cĂȘ.
In Rio Grande do Sul and parts of Santa Catarina, tu is the everyday pronoun, but speakers almost always pair it with the third-person verb form (tu fala, tu Ă©) instead of the textbook second-person form (tu falas, tu Ă©s). Traditional second-person agreement still survives more strongly in parts of the Northeast (MaranhĂŁo, PiauĂ, Pernambuco), making "you-verb agreement" one of the clearest dialect markers in Brazilian Portuguese.
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