Common Portuguese phrases

[Caligal]

Hi All, only 2 weeks till my plane leaves LA heading to Spain for Camino #2 !! I am starting in Pamplona walking to Ponferrada then taking the train to Porto to do the coastal CP. I do pretty well with my basic Spanish but know next to nothing in Portuguese. Can anyone give me some catch phrases? Thanks

 

[Tincatinker]

obrigado

 

[TatiLie]

Your interest is very nice! Most Portuguese people speak English. I actually did not speak Portuguese in Porto! (I'm Brazilian and probably would be harder for me to make my accent more understandable than just speaking in English). A few words if you really want to learn, but mind you, it's Brazilian Portuguese, they might have some little differences in Portugal (just like British English and American English)
• obrigada/obrigado = thank you (f/m)
• por favor = please
• bom dia = good morning (also sounds the same in Galician)
• onde é o banheiro? = where's the toilet?
• você pode carimbar a minha credencial, por favor? = can you stamp my credential, please?
• quanto custa? = how much?
• posso ter a conta, por favor? = may I have the bill, please?
• um cafezinho e dois pastéis de nata, por favor = a small coffee and two cream tarts, please (for the best tarts go to A Manteigaria in Porto. You won't regret it)

 

[Caligal]

Your interest is very nice! Most Portuguese people speak English. I actually did not speak Portuguese in Porto! (I'm Brazilian and probably would be harder for me to make my accent more understandable than just speaking in English). A few words if you really want to learn, but mind you, it's Brazilian Portuguese, they might have some little differences in Portugal (just like British English and American English)
• obrigada/obrigado = thank you (f/m)
• por favor = please
• bom dia = good morning (also sounds the same in Galician)
• onde é o banheiro? = where's the toilet?
• vc pode carimbar a minha credencial, por favor? = can you stamp my credential, please?
• quanto custa? = how much?
• posso ter a conta, por favor? = may I have the bill, please?
• um cafezinho e dois pastéis de nata, por favor = a small coffee and two cream tarts, please (for the best tarts go to A Manteigaria in Porto. You won't regret it)

Thank you so much, a quick ? how to order cafe con leche? Dee

 

[TatiLie]

Thank you so much, a quick ? how to order cafe con leche? Dee

• um café com leite, por favor = one coffee with milk, please

 

[Caligal]

obrigado

• um café com leite, por favor = one coffee with milk, please

obrigada!

 

[lt56ny]

Remember that alot more people speak at least some English in Portugal. If you know Spanish ask in Spanish as they will be able to understand what you want. The most important thing is don't worry at all. The Portuguese people are the nicest, warmest, kindest, most generous people on earth.

 

[Pelegrin]

You can say "Bon dia" and " un Cafe con leite" all the way from Porto to Santiago and of course "Por favor."
The other phrases above are a little bit different in Galego.

 

[Terry Callery]

I learned a trick from the two Portuguese language tapes I studied before taking my pilgrimage. There are thousands of words in Portuguese and English that have the same beginnings but different endings. Words in English that end in ‘tion’ become the same word in Portuguese with the ending ‘ção.’ So ‘accommodations’ becomes ‘acomodação’ and ‘information’ becomes ‘informação.’ Words that end in ‘ible’ can also be changed—‘terrible’ and ‘horrible’ become ‘terrível’ and ‘horrível.’ ‘University’ becomes ‘universidade.’ ‘Monastery’ becomes ‘monastério .’ And you can do the same thing in reverse as a Portuguese language speaker!”

 

[jungleboy]

• onde é o banheiro? = where's the toilet?

Casa de banho in Portugal; banheiro in Brazil.

 

[Texas Walker]

obrigado

That's the boys' version. The girls's is obrigada. And yes, they care about this.

 

[CdnDreamer]

I found that my French came in handy in Portugal. Sometimes I used google translate on my phone. Another trick was going into a cafe where all the food is out (like in a bakery) and taking pictures of what I wanted with my phone, sitting down at a table and then showing the waitress the pictures as a way of ordering. Everyone was so nice and they did appreciate my attempts to say obrigada and bom dia.

 

[jungleboy]

That's the boys' version. The girls's is obrigada. And yes, they care about this.

They should care about it because it’s the correct way to speak their language based on its grammatical rules. Obrigado/a isn’t just some random word that they change the ending of for fun; it means obligated/obliged and it changes according to gender just like other adjectives in Portuguese and other Romance languages. So just as ‘I am tired’ changes from ‘Estou cansado’ to ‘Estou cansada’ depending on the gender of the speaker, ‘thank you’ changes from ‘(Estou) obrigado’ to ‘(Estou) obrigada’.

 

[Pelegrin]

They should care about it because it’s the correct way to speak their language based on its grammatical rules. Obrigado/a isn’t just some random word that they change the ending of for fun; it means obligated/obliged and it changes according to gender just like other adjectives in Portuguese and other Romance languages. So just as ‘I am tired’ changes from ‘Estou cansado’ to ‘Estou cansada’ depending on the gender of the speaker, ‘thank you’ changes from ‘(Estou) obrigado’ to ‘(Estou) obrigada’.

In Galicia we say "estou obrigado/a" too but thank you is "grazas".
So, we wish good things to the other person but don´t feel obliged..

 

[JCLima]

In Galicia we say "estou obrigado/a" too but thank you is "grazas".
So, we wish good things to the other person but don´t feel obliged..

I say obrigadO and have yet to have someone trying to correct me
I don't feel obligated to anything and look at the word as an interjection.

 

[Friend from Barquinha]

I say obrigadO and have yet to have someone trying to correct me
I don't feel obligated to anything and look at the word as an interjection.

This is a bit funny! "Obrigada" is correct, for women, based on the grammar discussed above. However, it seems a lot of younger Portuguese don't know that rule--I guess, as here, grammar is rarely taught as part of the native language any more (if you're under 50, how much English grammar, in terms of rules, did you cover in school?) So either works fine. Most older Portuguese will be impressed, if you're a woman and use "Obrigada"--but it's not a big deal.

(I had a long argument with a train conductor when I said "Obrigada" when he punched my ticket. He insisted that it should be "Obrigado"! I've since checked with a teacher of Portuguese as a second language, and "Obrigada" is definitely more grammatically correct.

 

[trecile]

This is a bit funny! "Obrigada" is correct, for women, based on the grammar discussed above. However, it seems a lot of younger Portuguese don't know that rule--I guess, as here, grammar is rarely taught as part of the native language any more (if you're under 50, how much English grammar, in terms of rules, did you cover in school?) So either works fine. Most older Portuguese will be impressed, if you're a woman and use "Obrigada"--but it's not a big deal.

(I had a long argument with a train conductor when I said "Obrigada" when he punched my ticket. He insisted that it should be "Obrigado"! I've since checked with a teacher of Portuguese as a second language, and "Obrigada" is definitely more grammatically correct.

That's really interesting. A tour guide in Porto told me that women say obrigada, but I've heard several young women say obrigado. Perhaps a feminist thing?

 

[TatiLie]

Brazilian Portuguese is my mother tongue and just when I was quite grown up I started saying obrigadA. I suppose that still a lot of people don't know the correct grammar and it's not reinforced. There's a lot of regionalism on the way we speak and sometimes you can sound pedantic if you get too attached to the grammar rules. Some regions don't express concordance of plurals, some don't express concordance in pronouns, some add or remove vowels. I think it's extremely cute when someone who's not a Portuguse speaker takes the care on learning proper grammar, and if I was a train conductor hearing a woman saying obrigada, my heart would grow a little.

PS; there's also 'obrigado' as a noun. It does not express concordance with gender. For example "meu obrigado às pessoas que me ajudaram no Camino" (my thanks to the people who helped me on the Camino)