Address Forms: Tu, Você, O Senhor | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

English has exactly one word for "you," for everyone, in every situation — your boss, your dog, the Queen, a toddler. Brazilian Portuguese makes you choose, and the choice broadcasts the relationship: how close you are, how much respect is owed, and where you're from. This page maps the three-way system — você, tu, and o senhor / a senhora — and, just as importantly, the verb agreement each one demands, because that's where learners most often slip.

The single biggest thing to internalize: in Brazil, all three address forms can take a third-person verb. That's counterintuitive for an English speaker, because the pronoun means "you" (second person) but the verb agrees as if with "he/she/it." You learn to live with this quickly because it makes most of the system regular.

Você — the neutral default

Você is the everyday, all-purpose "you" across most of Brazil. It's informal-to-neutral: you use it with friends, coworkers, strangers your own age, shopkeepers, almost anyone you'd address without special deference. Grammatically, você takes the third-person singular verb — the same form you'd use for ele/ela.

Você sabe que horas são?

Do you know what time it is?

Onde você comprou esse tênis? Ficou ótimo.

Where did you buy those sneakers? They look great.

Você pode me passar o sal, por favor?

Can you pass me the salt, please?

The matching possessive is seu / sua (or, to disambiguate, de você). The object pronoun is officially o/a/lhe, but in speech Brazilians overwhelmingly use te (borrowed from the tu paradigm): Eu te ligo depois ("I'll call you later"). That você + te mix is one of the quirks of real BR — see below.

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If you remember nothing else: when in doubt, use você. It's the safe, neutral default that works almost everywhere in Brazil with almost everyone. You'll rarely offend with você; you only sound off if the situation clearly demands respect (use o senhor/a senhora) or close regional familiarity.

Tu — the regional variant

Tu is the historical "you" and survives strongly in several regions: the South (especially Rio Grande do Sul), much of the Northeast (Maranhão, Pará — technically North — and others), and pockets like parts of Santa Catarina and Rio de Janeiro. Where it lives, tu is the casual, intimate "you" — often more informal than você.

The complication is the verb. There are two patterns:

Colloquial tu
third-person verb
(the most common Brazilian pattern): tu vai, tu sabe, tu quer. The verb is identical to the você form. This is the norm in Rio, much of the Northeast, and casual speech generally.
Standard tu
true second-person verb
(with -s): tu vais, tu sabes, tu queres. This is the grammar-book form, kept more in Rio Grande do Sul, in careful/formal writing, and in literature.

Tu vai sair hoje à noite ou vai ficar em casa?

Are you going out tonight or staying home? (colloquial tu, 3rd-person verb)

Tu sabes que eu não gosto disso.

You know I don't like that. (standard tu, 2nd-person verb)

Bah, tchê, tu viu o jogo ontem?

Wow, mate, did you see the game yesterday? (southern, with regional vocatives)

The object/possessive forms for tu are te and teu/tua: Eu te disse, o teu carro.

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The famous "mixed" agreement — tu vai, tu pega, tu fez — is not sloppy Portuguese; it's the established colloquial norm in much of Brazil. The fully conjugated tu vais / tu pegas is more conservative and regional (strong in Rio Grande do Sul). As a learner you should recognize both and match whichever your region uses; defaulting to você is also perfectly fine and never wrong.

O senhor / a senhora — respect and distance

O senhor (to a man) and a senhora (to a woman) are the deferential "you," used to show respect, formality, or social distance: to elders, to authority figures, to customers in service contexts, to people you're meeting in a serious setting, or to anyone you wish to keep at a polite arm's length. Like você, they take a third-person singular verb — they're literally third-person noun phrases ("the gentleman," "the lady").

O senhor gostaria de ver o cardápio de sobremesas?

Would you like to see the dessert menu, sir?

A senhora precisa de ajuda com as malas?

Do you need help with the bags, ma'am?

Desculpe, o senhor poderia repetir o seu nome?

Sorry, could you repeat your name, sir?

The plural is os senhores / as senhoras (also mixed-group os senhores). The matching possessive is seu/sua, same as você — context and the address pronoun do the disambiguating.

In very formal or institutional address there's a further tier — Vossa Excelência (judges, high officials), Vossa Senhoria (formal correspondence) — all still taking third-person verbs. These belong to the formal register proper; see register/formal-register.

Plural "you" and informal "we"

There's no second-person-plural distinction in everyday BR: the plural of all three address forms is vocês ("you all"), taking a third-person plural verb (vocês vão, vocês sabem). For respect, os senhores / as senhoras.

Vocês já decidiram onde vão passar o feriado?

Have you (all) decided where you're spending the holiday?

Related and often confused: a gente = "we" (informal), taking a third-person singular verb (a gente vai), and o pessoal = "the group / everyone" (o pessoal já chegou, "everyone's already here"). These are not address pronouns, but they share the same "third-person verb for a non-third-person meaning" logic that pervades the system.

Choosing the right form

You're talking to…	Default choice
A friend, peer, sibling, classmate	você (or tu if your region uses it)
A stranger your own age, a shopkeeper	você
A grandparent, an elderly stranger	o senhor / a senhora
A boss or professor (first meetings)	o senhor/a senhora, easing to você if invited
A customer (you're serving them)	o senhor / a senhora
A judge, official, in court	Vossa Excelência / o senhor
A small child	você

The dynamics are social, not grammatical. Tu-ing a judge or senhor-ing a close friend is not ungrammatical — it's socially wrong, like calling your professor by a nickname or addressing your buddy as "sir." Brazilians also negotiate the boundary out loud: an elder may say "Pode me chamar de você" ("you can use você with me") to dissolve the formal distance.

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Watch for the asymmetry: a younger person says o senhor upward to an elder, and the elder replies with você downward. Mirroring back você to someone who's addressing you as o senhor can read as overly familiar — when in doubt, match the deference up the age/authority gradient.

Common Mistakes

❌ Você sabes a resposta?

Incorrect — 'você' takes a third-person verb, never the '-s' 2nd-person form.

✅ Você sabe a resposta? / Tu sabes a resposta?

Do you know the answer?

❌ O senhor pode falar mais devagar, por favor? Te ouço mal.

Mismatch — addressing with respectful 'o senhor' but then the intimate object 'te'.

✅ O senhor pode falar mais devagar? Estou ouvindo mal.

Could you speak more slowly, sir? I can't hear well.

❌ A senhora vão entrar agora.

Incorrect agreement — 'a senhora' is singular, takes a 3rd-person singular verb.

✅ A senhora vai entrar agora. / As senhoras vão entrar agora.

You may go in now, ma'am. / You (ladies) may go in now.

❌ Tu vai? Vós sabeis?

'Vós' is archaic in Brazil — nobody uses it in speech; it only survives in liturgy and old texts.

✅ Tu vai? Vocês sabem?

Are you going? Do you (all) know?

❌ (to your grandmother) Você quer que eu te ajude, vó?

Many families consider 'você' to an elder too casual — respect calls for 'a senhora'.

✅ A senhora quer que eu a ajude, vó?

Do you want me to help you, grandma?

Key Takeaways

BR address is a three-way choice: você (neutral default, 3rd-person verb), tu (regional — 3rd-person verb colloquially, 2nd-person -s form conservatively), o senhor/a senhora (respect, 3rd-person verb).
All three take third-person verbs in mainstream BR — the great regularizer.
Plural "you" is vocês (3rd-person plural); vós is archaic in Brazil.
Choosing wrong is a social error, not a grammatical one — você is the safe default; raise to o senhor/a senhora for elders, authority, and service.
Keep the object/possessive consistent with the address pronoun (don't mix respectful o senhor with intimate te).

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