I have a question about portugues in Brasil. Hi. i want to ask you something to all of you portugues speaker about your language culture. As far as i know in Brasil, do not exist the second person

JONAS

I have a question about portugues in Brasil. Hi. i want to ask you something to all of you portugues speaker about your language culture. As far as i know in Brasil, do not exist the second person pronoun tu. But in place of tu, you use voce. While i was investigating about this theme, i found a dictionary that saying "Because in Brazil, when there was great number of imports of African slavery, since they couldn't indicate their owner as 'tu' , started to be generalized the use of voce in place of tu." And i have heard that in the southern part of brazil, still they use 'tu' as there were more communication with the mainland. So, could anybody can make me sure about the origin of use of voce instead of tu? Obrigado.

Nov 17, 2014 12:40 PM

Corrections · 11

Voce come the word vossa merce, that slaves called them lords. but they had difficult said vossa merce. slaves said vosmece, and throught the time change to voce. Voce become reduction from vossa merce ,but vossa merce was formal and nowadays it's used. voce is informal." tu" we learn at school , lesson areformal portuguese, but in conversation we say Voce.

November 17, 2014

Hi JGW! As our partners said above, we don't use "tu" in spoken portuguese, although people that live in South of Brazil still use it. If you use you will be understood, but if you want to be more natural, use "você". P.S.: Sorry any mistake, I'm new in English.

November 20, 2014

tu is used in brazil some region from Pernambuco and in South of Brazil . but South they use wrong conjugation , for example right is Tú vaís but Southern say "tú vai". rest of country use Você. in Portugal and countries in África that speak portuguese they use tu more than você. Here tú we learn at school but don't use in daily conversation or News.

November 18, 2014

Eduardo is correct, you shouldn't say 'tu' doesn't exist because, actually, it's alive and well in many parts of Brazil. In some brazilian states, it has been replaced by 'você', for example, in rio de janeiro. here, we don't always use 'tu', and, when we do, we don't use the right verbs after it - we say 'tu + verb (você)'. that doesn't mean we don't know the grammar, it's just a matter of habit. In the south, and i believe it also happens in some places in the north/northeast, 'tu' is used like you would use 'você' in other locations - very common. Also, you can see 'tu' being used in formal texts and poems/books with the right grammar. 'tu' definitely exists. As for the south having more communication in the 16th century, that doesn't make any sense because in the 1500s, as Eduardo said, everything was located in the northeast. even later, through the 1600s, the process of colonization and exploration took time to get to the south; i'd guess the portuguese started reaching those areas when they discovered gold and other minerals in the southeast, making both Portugal and private companies start exploring the 'inside' of the territory. i don't have a 'formal source' to show you either but any middle school book of brazilian history will probably confirm you this. hope that helped a little! :)

November 17, 2014

I was also referring to past History, JGW. The economic centre of Brazil, as well as its capital, were all located in the Northeast back then. Like I told you before, I don't have data to support what I'm telling you, but it doesn't seem right.

November 17, 2014

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