---
name: portuguese-language
description: Use when asked to write, translate into, or check text in Portuguese — grammatical gender agreement, the significant European-vs-Brazilian split in spelling/vocabulary/grammar, regionally variable formal-informal address (você, tu), and nasal vowels marked with a tilde, official in Portugal, Brazil, and several African and Asian countries.
---

# Portuguese Language

Português (Portuguese) is a Romance language, official in Portugal,
Brazil, and several countries in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe) and Asia (East Timor). It's
written in the Latin alphabet with diacritics including acute and
circumflex accents (á, â, é, ê, í, ó, ô, ú) and the tilde for nasal
vowels (ã, õ), plus the cedilla (ç).

## Nasal vowels

Portuguese has nasal vowel sounds with no direct English equivalent —
air passes through the nose during the vowel, changing both its sound
and meaning from the non-nasal version. Two are marked directly with a
tilde in spelling: ã (as in mãe, "mother," or São) and õ (as in
questões). Other nasal sounds are written with a vowel followed by m or
n (bem, som) rather than a tilde. Getting these diacritics right matters
for meaning, not just accent: irmã (sister) vs. irma is a real spelling
distinction.

## Grammatical gender

Nouns are masculine or feminine, with articles and adjectives agreeing:
o menino alto (the tall boy), a menina alta (the tall girl). Gender
generally follows the -o/-a pattern with exceptions to learn individually
(o problema, a mão), similar to the pattern in Spanish and Italian.

## European vs. Brazilian Portuguese

European and Brazilian Portuguese differ enough in spelling, vocabulary,
and some grammar that specifying which variant is needed matters for any
translation task — this isn't a minor accent difference. The
Orthographic Agreement of 1990 unified some spelling differences between
the two (and other Portuguese-speaking countries) but didn't eliminate
them fully, and adoption has been uneven. Vocabulary differs notably:
comboio vs. trem (train), autocarro vs. ônibus (bus), pequeno-almoço vs.
café da manhã (breakfast). Grammar differs too — Brazilian Portuguese
commonly places object pronouns before the verb where European
Portuguese places them after or attaches them with a hyphen (te vejo vs.
vejo-te), and Brazilian Portuguese uses gerund constructions (estou
fazendo) more than European Portuguese, which favors the infinitive
construction (estou a fazer).

## Formal/informal address

Address conventions vary meaningfully by region rather than following one
uniform pattern. In Brazil, você functions as a fairly neutral, widely
used default for "you" in most everyday contexts, with tu used mainly in
certain regions (notably the South and Northeast) — but você, despite
looking like a formal pronoun historically, is not perceived as
particularly formal in Brazilian usage. In Portugal, tu is the everyday
informal form used with family, friends, and peers, while você reads as
more formal or distant there than it does in Brazil, and formal address
often uses o senhor/a senhora instead. This means the "same" pronoun
carries a different formality register depending on which variant is in
use.

## Common pitfalls

- **Translating into "Portuguese" without specifying European or
  Brazilian** — vocabulary, some grammar, and even some spelling differ
  enough that the result can read as wrong or foreign to either
  audience.
- **Dropping the tilde on nasal vowels** (mae for mãe) — a real spelling
  error, not a cosmetic omission, and can create ambiguity.
- **Assuming você carries the same formality in Portugal that it does in
  Brazil** — it reads more formal/distant in Portugal than in Brazil.
- **Using Brazilian object-pronoun placement or gerund constructions
  when European Portuguese is wanted, or vice versa.**
- **Guessing gender from the final vowel without checking exceptions**
  like o problema, o dia, or a mão.

## Learn more

- [[spanish-language]] for the closest major relative of Portuguese,
  with its own regional (European/Latin American) split.
- [[french-language]] for another Romance language with grammatical
  gender and regional vocabulary variation.
- [[italian-language]] for a Romance language with similar
  gender-agreement patterns.
- [[locale]] for broader internationalization considerations beyond
  language mechanics.