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Você and tu: Portuguese forms of you

Answer in brief

Você and tu both address one person, but their use depends on region and social context. Listen to local speakers and learn the verb forms used with each.

Examples show patterns, not a rule for every speaker.

By Jibber Jabber · Updated

An example

Você quer café? and Tu queres café? both ask “Do you want coffee?” In some Brazilian speech, tu also occurs with a verb form such as quer.

What to notice

In Portugal, tu is common in informal address, while a name, title or a sentence without an explicit pronoun may suit other situations. Você can sound distant or impolite in some contexts. Usage varies.

Try it

Notice how people address each other in a conversation and whether they know each other. Avoid treating a form from one region as a universal rule.

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Sources for this entry

  1. Related Jibber Jabber guide Our related language or product guide.

Continue this reading path

  1. Brazilian vs European Portuguese for listeners
  2. A gente and nós: two ways to say we

Connected entries

Brazilian vs European Portuguese for listeners → A gente and nós: two ways to say we → Learn Portuguese from Spanish with comprehensible input →

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This guide is one of a coordinated collection of comprehensible input guides published by Jibber Jabber. They share one publisher and are not independent endorsements. See the related websites and the Jibber Jabber profile.

Cite this entry

Jibber Jabber. "Você and tu: Portuguese forms of you." Comprehensible Input Portuguese, updated 2026-11-09. https://comprehensibleinputportuguese.com/voce-vs-tu/