{"id":3146,"date":"2012-01-26T04:32:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T04:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2012-01-26T04:32:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T04:32:33","slug":"learning-tip-informality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/learning-tip-informality\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Tip: Informality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something that can be a bit confusing about spoken Portuguese is when to be informal, and when to be formal. In some ways, Portuguese is quite informal. Small talk is a very important part of communication, and expressions like <em>tudo bom, tudo j\u00f3ia, <\/em>and<em> tudo bem <\/em>are commonplace in any conversation. So it can sometimes be tricky to figure out when to be formal.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll find that even when doing business or speaking to strangers, they&#8217;ll sign off on the phone or on emails by saying &#8220;um abra\u00e7o&#8221; (a hug) or even &#8220;beijos&#8221; (kisses). For English speakers accustomed to using more formal language in business, this can feel a bit unusual. But the key is to test the waters before you go the informal route. If you&#8217;re on the phone, see what the other person says before offering a hug or kiss, and if it&#8217;s email, go with a more formal greeting initially. Once you see how the person speaks to you, you can respond accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>Another issue with formality is the use of <em>voc\u00ea<\/em> (you). Much of the time, this is what you would use to address others. But it&#8217;s also important to address certain people more formally, such as the elderly or those of high stature, like a business executive or government officials. In those cases, it&#8217;s more proper to call them <em>senhor<\/em> or <em>senhora<\/em>, rather than <em>voc\u00ea<\/em>. If you&#8217;re not sure how to address someone, it&#8217;s best to start out using the more formal approach. Then if you get to know the person better, it might be ok to start using the more informal word.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, never forget to ask if you have a doubt! Brazilians are very appreciative of foreigners learning their language, and are more often than not patient with Portuguese learners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something that can be a bit confusing about spoken Portuguese is when to be informal, and when to be formal. In some ways, Portuguese is quite informal. Small talk is a very important part of communication, and expressions like tudo bom, tudo j\u00f3ia, and tudo bem are commonplace in any conversation. So it can sometimes&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/learning-tip-informality\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1851],"tags":[109571],"class_list":["post-3146","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-learning","tag-informality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/portuguese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}