Careful with a common mistake, even for the brazilians: Agente = Secret agent or someting like that. A gente = We, people, etc Regards, Davi

A gente = nós = We As pessoas = People

When you say "A gente" you are included in the sentence, that is: A gente está com um medo mortal de um bombardeio aéreo" - We are afraid of ...(something). It sounds like something is happening around you. When you say "As pessoas" They can be next to you or distant from you , that is: People are afraid of (something) They are afraid of... - they can be next to you or in another place, it sounds like a general happening. "As pessoas estão com um medo mortal de um bombardeio aéreo" versus "A gente está com um medo mortal de um bombardeio aéreo"? Ex: A gente está com frio - We are cold. As pessoas estão com frio nos Estados unidos. - The people are cold in the USA. A gente gosta de pizza - We like pizza. As pessoas da Itália gostam de pizza - The people from Italy like pizza. Best regards,

First and foremost, "as pessoas" is akin to "gente" (group of people), not to "A gente". Forget that article there. "A gente", in the other hand, works like a single word and has the meaning of "we". What might cause you trouble is when a sentence requires an article near the noun “gente” for whatever reason, it happens, although scarcely. Some examples: - Aquele povo tinha medo de fogo/Aquela gente tinha medo de fogo/Aquelas pessoas tinham medo de fogo; Aqueles nós tínhamos medo? Nope. - O povo é necessário/A gente é necessária/As pessoas são necessárias; Nós somos necessários? Maybe, but there is a catch here, to make this function with “a gente” – In the sense of we – you would have to phrase this as “A gente é necessário”. Why? Because the standard for the use of “we” requires you to convert your complement to the masculine form, in this case, a masculine adjective. O povo é fraco/A gente é fraca/Nós somos fracos/A gente é fraco. Can you tell the difference? Also, you don't really need to confuse those two when "a gente" is not followed by a verb. Think about it, if "a gente" works as a synonym to "nós" it will require a verb to be conjugated with, right? As for which one is more frequently used to refer to the general population I can assure you it is not "a gente", maybe "o povo", "as pessoas", but never "a gente". It helps to notice that Brazilians as a whole have this weird habit of using "we" where in other languages the person would distance herself from the matter and use "people" instead.

"A gente" means "nós", but there is a difference with the verb when we use these words: - A gente gosta de futebol. OR - Nós (we) gostamos de futebol. When "a gente" is used, the verb shall be in the singular, whereas when we use "nós" the verb must be in plural. Both are correct, but to use "nós" is better than "a gente".