Yes/No Questions by Intonation

A yes/no question is one that can be answered with "yes" or "no": Do you like coffee? Is it raining? Did they call? In Brazilian Portuguese, these are the simplest questions to form because they require zero structural change to the statement. You change one thing only: your intonation. This page shows you exactly how, and then teaches you the very Brazilian habit of answering by repeating the verb rather than saying "sim."

The rule: statement + rising pitch

Take any declarative sentence. Keep every word in the same order. End on a rising pitch instead of a falling one. That is a yes/no question.

In every pair, the statement and the question are spelled identically. Nothing moves. No word is added. The question mark in writing — and the rising melody in speech — is the only signal. This is radically different from English, where the question machinery (do-support, inversion of be/have) is unavoidable.

What English makes you do — and Portuguese doesn't

English turns statements into questions in three different ways depending on the verb:

• do-support for ordinary verbs: "You like it" → "Do you like it?"
• inversion of be: "She is here" → "Is she here?"
• inversion of auxiliaries: "They have left" → "Have they left?"

Portuguese needs none of these. Whatever the verb, the recipe is the same — leave it alone and raise your pitch.

The English instinct to flip the subject and verb is strong and wrong here. Está ela aqui? is not how Brazilians speak; it sounds archaic and bookish. Inversion of subject and verb does survive in a few literary and very formal contexts, and in European Portuguese it is somewhat more alive, but in everyday Brazilian speech and writing the subject stays put.

Subject pronouns are optional, so questions can be bare verbs

Because Portuguese verb endings already show the person, the subject pronoun is frequently dropped. That means a yes/no question can be as short as a single verb with rising pitch:

This is not the English-style inversion that puts the verb first deliberately — the subject simply isn't spoken because it is understood. The word order of whatever is present stays declarative.

Answering: Brazilians echo the verb

Here is the part textbooks underplay. While sim (yes) and não (no) exist and are correct, Brazilians very often answer a yes/no question by repeating the main verb instead. A bare sim can even sound a little curt or formal in casual conversation.

The logic mirrors English's "Do you like it?" → "I do" — we answer with the operator (the auxiliary). Portuguese has no auxiliary "do," so it echoes the main verb itself, conjugated to match the new subject (Você gosta? → Gosto, switching from "you" to "I"). Notice the person shifts: the questioner says gosta (you), the answerer says gosto (I).

You will also hear sim tacked on after the verb for warmth or emphasis (Gosto, sim — "I really do"), and é (it is) as an all-purpose affirmation when the question is about a state.

Tags come next

Brazilian speech is full of confirmation-seeking yes/no questions formed with the tag né? (Você vem, né? — "You're coming, right?"). Because tags are their own small system, they have a dedicated page — Yes/No Tag Questions with 'Né?'.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• A yes/no question = the statement, unchanged, said with rising final pitch.
• No inversion, no "do" — whatever the verb, leave it where a statement puts it.
• Subject pronouns can drop, so a question may be just a verb: Gosta?
• To answer naturally, echo the verb (re-conjugated for the new subject): Gosto / Não gosto. Bare sim can sound abrupt.