A1 Text: Self-Introduction

A self-introduction is the very first thing you will ever say in Brazilian Portuguese, and it happens to pack in more high-frequency grammar than almost any other A1 text. In a handful of sentences you state your name, where you are from, your age, your job, and what you like — and each of those uses a structure that English handles differently. This page presents a natural BR self-introduction (informal) and unpacks every piece.

The text

Oi! Meu nome é Carla. Eu tenho 28 anos. Sou brasileira, de São Paulo, mas moro no Rio. Trabalho como professora. Gosto de música, cinema e viagens. Tenho dois irmãos e um cachorro.

Read it for gist first. Then study the annotations below.

Grammar in action

"Oi" — the universal informal greeting

Oi is the all-purpose informal "hi" of BR. It works any time of day, with anyone you would address as você, and is far more common in casual speech than olá (which feels slightly more neutral or written). For introductions among strangers in a relaxed setting, Oi, tudo bem? is the default opener.

Note a Carla: BR routinely places a definite article before a personal name in speech (a Carla, o Bruno). English never does this. It is optional and informal, but extremely common.

"Meu nome é" and stating your name two ways

Meu nome é Carla — literally "My name is Carla" — uses the possessive meu (masculine, agreeing with the masculine noun nome, not with the speaker Carla). This is one of two equally natural ways to give your name. The other is the reflexive Eu me chamo Carla ("I call myself Carla").

A crucial agreement point: meu agrees with the thing possessed (nome, masculine), so a woman still says meu nome. The possessive never agrees with the speaker — see possessive pronouns.

"Tenho 28 anos" — age uses TER, not SER

This is the single biggest surprise for English speakers. BR expresses age with ter ("to have"): literally "I have 28 years." You never use ser ("to be") for age. See ter for possession.

The logic: BR treats your age as a quantity you possess, the way English treats it in older expressions like "she has seen twenty summers." Drop the word anos and the sentence breaks — Tenho 28 alone sounds incomplete in BR. And the question is Quantos anos você tem?, never Quão velho você é? (a calque of "How old are you?").

"Sou brasileira, de São Paulo" — SER for identity and origin

Ser is the verb of permanent identity — nationality, origin, profession, who you fundamentally are. Sou brasileira ("I am Brazilian") and sou de São Paulo ("I'm from São Paulo") both use ser. See ser for identity.

Two things to absorb. First, brasileira ends in -a because Carla is a woman — adjectives of nationality agree in gender; a man says sou brasileiro. Second, the eu is dropped: the verb form sou can only be first-person singular, so the pronoun is unnecessary. BR drops subject pronouns constantly — see dropping the subject.

"De São Paulo" vs "no Rio" — origin with DE, location with EM

Origin uses the preposition de ("from"): de São Paulo. Current location uses em ("in"), which contracts with the article: em + o Rio → no Rio. The city Rio de Janeiro takes an article in BR (o Rio), so "in Rio" becomes no Rio.

São Paulo, by contrast, takes no article (moro em São Paulo, not no São Paulo). Which place names take an article is partly arbitrary and must be learned case by case — there is no clean rule covering every city.

"Moro no Rio" and "Trabalho como professora" — present indicative, dropped subject

Moro and trabalho are regular -ar verbs (morar, trabalhar) in the present indicative, first-person singular, with eu dropped. The present indicative is the backbone of A1 description — see the present indicative overview.

Como here means "as" (in the role of), and professora takes -a for a woman; a man says professor. Note there is no article before the profession: Trabalho como professora, not como uma professora — BR omits the indefinite article before an unmodified profession, exactly where English keeps "a".

"Gosto de" — the mandatory DE

Gostar always takes the preposition de before its object. There is no version of this verb without de. You like of something. See gostar.

This is the most common preposition error English speakers make, because "to like" is transitive in English (no preposition). In BR the de is not optional decoration — Gosto música is simply wrong. When the thing liked is a verb, gostar de takes the infinitive: gosto de viajar ("I like to travel").

"Tenho dois irmãos e um cachorro" — TER for possession and numerals

Back to ter, now in its core "have/own" sense: family members and pets. Dois agrees with the masculine plural irmãos (a feminine pair would be duas). Irmãos can mean "brothers" specifically or "siblings" generally — a mixed group defaults to the masculine plural.

Vocabulary and expressions

• oi — hi (informal, any time of day)
• tudo bem? — how's it going? / all good? (literally "everything well?")
• meu nome é... / me chamo... — my name is...
• ter ... anos — to be ... years old (literally "to have ... years")
• ser de — to be from
• morar em — to live in
• trabalhar como — to work as
• gostar de — to like
• irmãos — siblings / brothers
• cachorro — dog

Cultural note

Brazilians introduce themselves warmly and informally. Oi, tudo bem? and prazer ("pleasure", short for muito prazer em conhecer você) are standard. Using você rather than tu is the safe default across most of Brazil, and placing the definite article before names (a Carla, o João) signals the relaxed, familiar tone that characterizes everyday BR. Stating your origin by region (sou de Minas, sou do Nordeste) is also very common — regional identity matters a great deal in Brazil.

Common Mistakes

These are the real transfer errors English speakers make with the structures in this text.