Portuguese/Contents/L1/Lesson One - Saying Hello

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Welcome to this Wikibook Portuguese Language Course. Good luck - or should we say, boa sorte!

Dialogue 1 Ricardo: Bom dia. O meu nome é Ricardo. Tudo bem? João: Tudo bem, obrigado. E você? Ricardo: Estou bem, obrigado. Qual é o seu nome? João: O meu nome é João. Ricardo: Muito prazer. João: Adeus! Ricardo: Adeus!

OK, obviously there's a bit of information to absorb there. But don't worry, let's just tackle it one thing at a time.

Bom dia - this literally means "good day" but it is in fact used for "good morning". While "good day" in English sounds a little stuffy, you can use bom dia quite naturally until around 12PM. Other greetings include:
Olá - hi
Boa tarde - good afternoon
Boa noite - good evening, good night.

So Ricardo (which is the Portuguese version of "Richard") has started by saying "good day" or "hello". Next he introduces himself.

O meu nome é Ricardo - My name is Ricardo.

In informal language, or in spoken language in general, "Chamo-me João" is more often used.

This is in answer to a question asked by Ricardo:

Como se chama? - What is your name? (literally, "How do you call/name yourself?")

Como means "How?", and você is one way of saying "you".

Before we go on, a word of pronunciation - 'ch' in Portuguese is always pronounced like the 'sh' in 'shine', never like the 'ch' in 'cheese'.

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Let's go back to the first line. Ricardo asks

Como está?

We already know what como means. The next word, 'está' means 'is'. BUT - and here's our first big point of grammar - it can also mean 'are' in some circumstances. This is one part of the verb estar, which is one of two verbs that translate to our English 'to be'. Confused? Think of a verb like a tree. On the trunk there's the verb's name - this is called the infinitive. Some examples of infinitives are...

 ESTAR      -     SER    -     TER   -    COMER    -    FALAR    -    ABRIR
 To be in        To be       To have      To eat       To speak      To open

Now we have to imagine the branches of the tree. Each branch is a different TENSE of the verb. Example? 'I am running' is present continuous tense because it is happening NOW whereas 'I was running' is past continuous tense because it happened in the PAST.

Finally, the leaves on the branches are different CONJUGATIONS. Example? We say 'I run' and 'you run' but 'he/she/it runS' with an 's' on the end. This is a different conjugation of the present indicative tense of the verb 'to run'. However in Portuguese there are more conjugations than in English.

Let's take a look at the conjugations for the verb ESTAR. We already know that one of them will be 'está', from the dialogue.

ESTAR - To Be in

I am	Eu est	ou
You (familiar) are	Tu est	ás
He is	Ele est	á
She is	Ela est	á
You (normal) are	Você est	á
We are	Nós est	amos
You (plural) are	Vocês est	ão
They are (also elas, vocês)	Eles est	ão

Look back at the dialogue. Ricardo says Estou bem. We can see that the first word means 'am'. Bem simply means 'well'. So we have 'Am well.' We seem to be missing the 'I'! However, in Portuguese, because there are different conjugations for the different people, you can often leave out the 'I, we, they' etc. if it is obvious. In the case of 'I' and 'we' it is always obvious in the present tense.

There's also always a bit of confusion at the start between the different forms of 'you'.

• Tu – This is really mostly used in Portugal, and some regions from Brazil. It is a really casual way of saying ‘you’ – used between close friends or to children. If in doubt, don’t use it, use 'o senhor/a senhora' (masculine/feminine).
• Você – It only refers to one person. Used in informal speech mainly in Brazil.
• Vocês – Plural form of ‘tu’ or ‘você’.

There is also one other form of you: Vós. However this form is less used and is mostly used by people in Northern Portugal and in classic literature. Therefore we shall ignore this form of "you". However if you need to understand it, the grammar references on this Wikibook include Vós - which, I should point out, is like vocês - it is currently only used when talking to more than one person. Still confused? Check out the Personal Pronouns of Subject page.

Muito prazer means It's a pleasure.

Adeus means goodbye.

Let's practice a bit of what we've learnt. Translate the following into Portuguese. 1. I am called Luís. 2. My name is Helen. 3. How are you? (use the 'tu' form of estar) Translate the following into English 4. Ele está bem. 5. Muito prazer. 6. Chamo-me Derek. 7. O meu nome é Jill. Answers 1. Chamo-me Luís. 2. O meu nome é Helen 3. Como estás? 4. He is well. 5. It's a pleasure. 6. I am called Derek. 7. My name is Jill.

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