Short information questions in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A1

Short information questions in Brazilian Portuguese

You meet someone at their workplace and need a few details. Choose a short question according to the information you need: a place, a time, a name or the identity of an object. Reuse familiar phrases rather than learning a new set of verbs.

Start with familiar questions

Como você se chama? means “What’s your name?”: você is “you”, and se chama is the familiar formula “are called”. Keep se chama together when asking a name; no reflexive-verb chart is needed here. O que é isso? means “What is that?”: o que is “what”, é is “is”, and isso points to the thing you are asking about.

Você trabalha aqui? means “Do you work here?”: trabalha is the form of trabalhar (to work) used with você, and aqui means “here”. This question checks a suggested place. Its familiar answer Trabalho aqui. means “I work here”: trabalho is the speaker’s form, with eu (“I”) left unspoken.

Choose the information you need

Onde asks “where”, about a place; quando asks “when”, about a time. Como asks “how”, but in Como você se chama? the whole question asks a name: do not translate it word for word as an ordinary English “how” question. O que is the two-word expression “what”, used here to identify an object.

Read and listen to the four cards, then say which one asks about a place and which one asks about time. Notice that o que belongs together; the o in this expression is not a separate “the”.

Keep the familiar order

Onde você trabalha? means “Where do you work?”: you need a place, rather than confirmation of aqui. Quando você vai trabalhar? means “When are you going to work?”: you need the time of the planned action. In these examples the question expression comes first, then você, then the verb; there is no extra word corresponding to English do and no English-style are you inversion.

Vai + trabalhar is the familiar plan pattern: vai is used with você, and trabalhar keeps its infinitive form. For your own plan, vou replaces vai: Vou trabalhar amanhã. means “I’m going to work tomorrow”; amanhã means “tomorrow”. Here vai trabalhar refers to the planned activity, not a journey to a workplace. Listen and repeat the two questions, keeping vai trabalhar together.

Onde / Quando você trabalha / vai trabalhar?

Two details at a workplace

One person asks where the other works, then when they plan to work. The replies give just the familiar details aqui (“here”) and amanhã (“tomorrow”). Listen once without repeating, then take the questioner’s role.

Do not replace either reply with just sim (“yes”): these questions ask for missing information. The earlier Você trabalha aqui? can check a fact; Onde você trabalha? asks you to supply the place.

Ask for the missing detail

Before listening to the solutions, ask in Portuguese, in this order: someone’s name; what an object is; where that person works; when that person is going to work. Use the name and object formulas already shown, and the two questions with você.

Check the four examples in the same order, then say them again without looking. For a small transfer task, point to another familiar object and ask the same identification question; you do not need a new question pattern. If you practise with a partner, keep the workplace answers to aqui and amanhã for now.

One missing detail, one question

Choose onde for a place and quando for a time. Use Como você se chama? for a name and O que é isso? to identify an object. In the two work questions, keep você before trabalha or vai trabalhar. You can ask a useful question before learning every possible answer; clock times and weekdays can wait.

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