Subject pronouns: eu, você, a gente…

A “subject pronoun” is the word for the person doing the action: I, you, she, we. In Brazil, você, o senhor / a senhora and a gente all take the same verb form as ele and ela, so everyday speech needs only three or four forms of each verb.

There is no special word for “it” as a subject. Often the verb stands alone: É caro. (It's expensive.) Está chovendo. (It's raining.) For a thing you've just mentioned, ele or ela can also mean “it”: O celular? Ele está na mesa. For a group of men, or of men and women, use eles; elas is only for a group of women.

Você is the normal “you” in Brazil: with friends, family, colleagues, and with most people of your own age, even strangers. Job interviews and most workplaces use você too.

O senhor (to a man) and a senhora (to a woman) show respect. Use them with older people, and in shops, hotels and clinics, where staff often use them with customers. They take the same verb form as você, so only the word changes. Many Brazilians also say o senhor and a senhora to their grandparents.

With a first name, respect is shown with Seu for a man and Dona for a woman: Seu Walter, Dona Lúcia. In speech, você is often shortened to cê: Cê vem?

A gente literally means “the people”, but in everyday Brazilian speech it's the most common way to say “we”. It takes the ele form of the verb: a gente vai, a gente mora. Adjectives usually stay singular but agree with the real people: a group of women says a gente está cansada.

Nós (with the nós form: nós vamos) is used in writing, in formal situations and in the verb tables. Mixing the two, as in a gente vamos, is common in some regions but considered incorrect, so avoid it.

Tu is the informal “you” in Portugal. In Brazil it's regional: it's common in the South (Porto Alegre, Florianópolis), in parts of the North and Northeast (for example Belém and São Luís), and it's heard in Rio. Most Brazilians who say tu use the ele form of the verb, tu vai, tu viu?, which is informal. The full form, tu vais, tu viste, is heard mainly in Portugal and in a few regions of Brazil.

You don't need to use tu, but you'll hear it. The object pronoun te is used all over Brazil, also with você: Te ligo amanhã. (I'll call you tomorrow.)

In Spanish or European Portuguese the pronoun is often left out, because the verb ending shows the person. In Brazil você, ele, ela and a gente share one verb form, so the pronoun is usually needed: mora em Recife on its own could mean “you live”, “he lives”, “she lives” or “we live”.

Eu and nós are sometimes dropped, because their forms are clear: Moro em Recife. Moramos em Recife. In answers the pronoun is often dropped too: Você trabalha aqui? — Trabalho.