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| Branco | Friday 24th of September 2004 08:58:21 AM |
| the use of personal pronouns in Portuguese - Hi, I have a question for native Portuguese speakers about the use of the personal pronouns tu and você in Portuguese. In what circumstances will you use tu and in which will you use você. If you know any French you will probably understand the concepts tutoyer and vousvoyer which are usually used in linguistics to define this concept of you (for formal settings) and you (for informal settings). I know some Portuguese but I don't know exactly when to address people as tu and when as você. I hope someone can help me with this. Thanks | |
| susana | Friday 24th of September 2004 01:50:00 PM |
| - Boa noite, Branco. Well, "tu" is informal and "você" is formal. Usually, we use "você" when talking to someone “important”, or older than us, or people we don't know. You can use "tu", when talking with someone that you know, and have trust or/and it's younger or have the same age than you. This is a basic explanation, it isn’t just like this, but I hope you understand, if you prefer I can consult a grammar (or something). Those things are a little subjective. In brazilian portuguese, the usual is to use "você". | |
| Branco | Friday 24th of September 2004 02:09:04 PM |
| - Thanks Susana, but what form do you use when talking to family members like your aunt or your grandmother? Do you address your grandmother as tu because she is someone you know or as você, because she obviously is older than you. In my own lanuguage Dutch we use the same sort of system jij(informal) and u(formal) but I would find it inappropriate to call my grandmother jij, in Portuguese tu. | |
| susana | Saturday 25th of September 2004 06:31:24 AM |
| - obviously, we should address our grandmother with "você", because is someone older than us, and who we respect. It's the same thing than in Dutch. | |
| Branco | Saturday 25th of September 2004 07:16:30 AM |
| - I also heard that some Portuguese people whom you haven't met before might be offended if you address them with você so that you should use o senhor or a senhora instead. This is what I learned from my Portuguese teacher and which I find in most grammars as well. Example: I walk down the street and want to ask an older man "what's the time", should I use você or o senhor? And do you have a verb for using the você or tu form? So can you ask a person please use the tu form to address me with one word? | |
