A yes/no question is one that can be answered with "yes" or "no": Do you speak English? Are you coming? In Brazilian Portuguese these questions are remarkably easy to build, because the language does almost nothing to mark them. There is no auxiliary "do," no inversion of subject and verb — just a statement said with a rising voice. The hard part for English speakers is not building the question but trusting that so little needs to change.
The core rule: same words, rising intonation
In English, turning a statement into a yes/no question requires surgery. You speak English becomes Do you speak English? — you insert "do," move it to the front, and strip the tense off the main verb. Brazilian Portuguese does none of this. You keep the exact word order of the statement and simply raise your voice at the end.
Você fala inglês?
Do you speak English?
Vocês moram aqui?
Do you all live here?
Ela já chegou?
Has she already arrived?
Compare each of these with its statement form — Você fala inglês, Vocês moram aqui, Ela já chegou — and you will notice the words are identical. In writing, only the question mark tells them apart. In speech, only the melody does: the pitch climbs on the last stressed syllable instead of falling.
This is why a beginner's instinct to translate Do you have time? word by word goes wrong. There is no slot for "do." The whole idea is carried by Você tem tempo? with a lift at the end.
Why there is no inversion
European Portuguese, like English and French, can invert subject and verb in formal questions (Tens tu tempo?). Brazilian Portuguese has essentially abandoned this in speech. The colloquial language strongly prefers a fixed subject-verb-object order in all sentence types, statements and questions alike, and lets intonation do the work that word order does elsewhere. So while Falas tu inglês? is conceivable in old or very formal text, no Brazilian would say it in conversation.
O ônibus já passou?
Has the bus already gone by?
A gente pode entrar?
Can we go in?
Notice a gente ("we," literally "the people") keeps its normal position right before the verb, exactly as in a statement.
Tag questions: né? and friends
The other big piece of the everyday system is the tag question — a short add-on that turns a statement into a request for confirmation, like English "right?", "isn't it?", "don't you?" English picks the tag to match the verb and subject (you are, aren't you?; she came, didn't she?), which is fiddly. Brazilian Portuguese mostly uses one all-purpose tag: né?
né? is a contraction of não é? ("isn't it?"). It is utterly ubiquitous in speech and works regardless of the verb, tense, or subject of the sentence. (informal)
Você é o irmão da Carla, né?
You're Carla's brother, right?
A gente combinou sete horas, né?
We agreed on seven o'clock, didn't we?
The full form não é? is slightly more careful and is fine in neutral or semi-formal speech.
O senhor já assinou o documento, não é?
You've already signed the document, haven't you? (formal)
Other common tags, all roughly interchangeable, add small flavors:
| Tag | Register | Feel |
|---|---|---|
| né? | (informal) | The default. "Right?" |
| não é? | neutral | Slightly more careful "isn't it?" |
| certo? | neutral | "Correct?" — checking facts or agreement |
| tá? / 'tá bom? | (informal) | "OK?" — seeking consent, often after a request |
| não foi? | (informal) | Past-tense flavored "wasn't it / didn't it?" |
Me liga quando chegar, tá?
Call me when you get there, OK?
A prova é na sexta, certo?
The test is on Friday, correct?
Answering: echo the verb, not "sim"
Here is where Brazilian Portuguese genuinely surprises English speakers. To answer a yes/no question affirmatively, Brazilians very often repeat the verb of the question instead of saying sim ("yes"). This is the natural, idiomatic answer; bare sim can sound clipped or oddly emphatic, like an English "Affirmative."
— Você vem amanhã? — Venho.
— Are you coming tomorrow? — Yes (literally: I come).
— Vocês já comeram? — Comemos.
— Have you all eaten yet? — Yes (we have).
— Ele sabe nadar? — Sabe.
— Does he know how to swim? — Yes (he does).
The logic is parallel to English short answers like "Yes, I do" / "Yes, she does" — except that Brazilians keep the verb and drop the "yes," whereas English keeps "yes" and reduces the verb to an auxiliary. Because English uses "do/does/did/have/is" as the carrier, while Portuguese has no such auxiliary, the only word left to echo is the lexical verb itself.
You answer in whatever person the answer requires, not the person of the question. A question with você ("you") is answered with the eu ("I") form:
— Você gosta de futebol? — Gosto, sim.
— Do you like soccer? — Yes, I do.
Note Gosto, sim — Brazilians often pair the echoed verb with a following sim for warmth or emphasis. The sim lands after the verb, reinforcing it, rather than standing alone.
For "no," you place não before the verb (and may echo it):
— Você fuma? — Não fumo, não.
— Do you smoke? — No, I don't.
The doubled não (one before the verb, one at the end) is a very Brazilian way to soften and reinforce a negative answer at the same time; it sounds friendly rather than blunt.
Common Mistakes
❌ Faz você falar português?
Incorrect — invented a 'do'-auxiliary that doesn't exist in Portuguese.
✅ Você fala português?
Do you speak Portuguese?
❌ Mora você aqui?
Incorrect — inverting subject and verb; this sounds archaic/European, not Brazilian.
✅ Você mora aqui?
Do you live here?
❌ — Você quer café? — Sim.
Not wrong, but stiff — bare 'sim' sounds clipped where an echoed verb is natural.
✅ — Você quer café? — Quero.
— Do you want coffee? — Yes (I do).
❌ Você é brasileiro, não é você?
Incorrect — copying the English 'aren't you' tag with a pronoun.
✅ Você é brasileiro, né?
You're Brazilian, right?
❌ — Ela chegou? — Sim, ela fez.
Incorrect — translating 'Yes, she did' with a 'do'-auxiliary.
✅ — Ela chegou? — Chegou.
— Did she arrive? — Yes (she did).
Key takeaways
- A yes/no question = a statement + rising intonation. No "do," no inversion, no word-order change.
- né? is the universal tag question; it never changes form. Other tags (certo?, tá?, não é?) add minor shades.
- The natural "yes" is the echoed verb (Venho, Sabe, Comemos), optionally followed by sim; the natural "no" puts não before the verb, often doubled (Não fumo, não).
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Declarative SentencesA1 — The default statement sentence — affirmative and negative — with stable SVO order, falling intonation, and negation by simply placing 'não' before the verb.
- Wh-Questions in BRA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese builds information questions with o que, quem, quando, onde, como, por que, qual and quanto — fronting the question word but keeping statement word order.
- Tag Questions in BR (Né?)A1 — How Brazilian Portuguese turns any statement into a question with one invariable tag — 'né?' — instead of English's verb-and-polarity-matching tags.
- Present Indicative OverviewA1 — What the Brazilian Portuguese present indicative covers — and why it does the work English splits between simple and progressive.