How to Say “You” in Portuguese

Ways to say it

The phrase refers to the person being addressed.

Which one should you use?

While você is the standard way to say "you" in most casual and semi-formal settings, o senhor (masculine) or a senhora (feminine) is used to show high respect to elders or in very formal professional contexts. Tu is a second-person singular pronoun used in more specific regional and informal contexts.

Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?

For formal situations, O Senhor is used to address a man formally to demonstrate respect and courtesy and A Senhora is used to address a woman formally to demonstrate respect and courtesy. In informal contexts in Brazil, você is often used interchangeably with tu. In Portugal and a few regions in Brazil, tu is a common informal pronoun. For addressing a group of people, the common informal choice is vocês, though in more formal or traditional settings in Portugal, the pronoun vós is used for the second person plural.

Is it said differently in some regions?

The use of tu as the primary second-person pronoun is much more common in certain regions of Brazil, such as the South and parts of the Northeast and in Portugal, compared to the standard use of você in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo. In some parts of Brazil, cê is an alternative informal pronoun derived from você.

Related words

The individual or group spoken/written to (det): seu, sua, seus.

To address using the more formal second-person pronoun (verb): vosear.

How does it change in a sentence?

The pronoun tu requires the second-person singular verb conjugation, such as tu és or tu tens. Conversely, você is grammatically treated as a third-person singular pronoun, meaning it takes the same verb conjugations as ele (he) or ela (she), such as você é or você tem.

How do you pronounce it?

/voˈse/

What mistakes should you avoid?

English speakers often mistakenly use the second-person verb forms (like tu és) with você, but você must always be paired with third-person verb forms.