O pessoal trabalha hoje.

today

Breakdown of O pessoal trabalha hoje.

• trabalhar: to work
• o pessoal: the staff; people as a group

Questions & Answers about O pessoal trabalha hoje.

What does o pessoal mean here?

In this sentence, o pessoal is a very common Brazilian Portuguese way to refer to the people, the staff, the group, or everyone in some context.

It often does not mean a specific set of individually identified people. Instead, it sounds like a collective group:

• people at work
• the team
• the staff
• the folks

So depending on context, o pessoal trabalha hoje could refer to:

• the employees
• the team
• everyone there

It is a very natural everyday expression in Brazil.

Why is the verb trabalha singular if o pessoal refers to several people?

Because o pessoal is grammatically treated as a singular collective noun.

Even though it refers to more than one person, Portuguese usually matches the verb to the grammatical form of the subject, and o pessoal is singular. So:

• O pessoal trabalha hoje. = standard
• O pessoal trabalham hoje. = generally not standard

This is similar to English collective nouns in some varieties of English, like the team is working.

Is pessoal always a noun meaning people?