Pronouns in Portuguese

Level A1

Pronouns in Portuguese

Portuguese has the same basic pronouns as English, but it uses them a little differently. Next to the everyday você there's a polite "you", o senhor or a senhora, and the plural vocês works for any group, friends or strangers. "They" has two forms, eles for men or a mixed group and elas for women only, and in everyday speech a gente often replaces nós for "we", with the same verb form as ele: "A gente acabou de se mudar". Because the verb ending already shows who the subject is, the pronoun is often left out.

The eight pronouns — and ele does double duty as "it"

The pronoun chart: one person or more, everyday or polite

SingularPlural
eunós / a gente
você / tu / o senhor / a senhoravocês / os senhores / as senhoras
eleeles
elaelas

Pronoun + verb: Ela mora em Paris

Elamoraem Paris.

Você or o senhor? Two ways to say "you"

Você is the everyday "you", and it takes the same verb form as ele and ela: "Você fala muito rápido". To show respect, Brazilians say o senhor to a man and a senhora to a woman: a younger person to an older one, or a shop assistant to a customer, as in "Posso ajudar a senhora?". The verb doesn't change, only the word for "you": "Com licença, o senhor é o Tanaka?"

For two or more people, vocês works for everyone, friends or strangers: "Vocês já estão prontos?". Os senhores and as senhoras are the polite plural. In some regions you'll also hear tu, but você is understood everywhere.

Leaving the pronoun out — and no empty "it"

English always needs a subject, but in Portuguese the verb ending already tells you who it is, so "I" and "we" are often dropped: "Tô cansado", "Não entendi", "Estamos atrasados!" (tô and tá are the spoken forms of estou and está). You can drop "he" or "she" too when it's obvious who you mean: after "um menino", "Tem cinco anos" can only be about the boy. When it isn't clear, keep the pronoun: "Ele trabalha num banco".

When "it" means a thing, Portuguese can use ele or ela to match the noun (o livro → ele, a mesa → ela), but most of the time it just drops it: "Tá em cima da mesa", "Tá caro demais". And there's no empty "it" like in "It's raining": the sentence simply starts with the verb: "Tá chovendo".

Meeting an older neighbour: a senhora one way, você the other

At a party: who's he, who's she?

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