Learn how to use the phrase "Do you speak English?"
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| Oi, meu nome é Paloma! Hi everybody! I’m Paloma. |
| Welcome to PortuguesePod101.com’s “Português em três minutos”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Portuguese. |
| In the last lesson, we learned the most common forms of greetings in Portuguese. Do you remember them? |
| In this lesson we’re going to learn a very useful phrase: “Do you speak English?” |
| If you find yourself in a situation where you need assistance in English, this phrase can be a lifesaver. And because you’re asking it in Portuguese, you can be sure that everyone will understand what you’re saying, even if their answer is no. |
| Here's the informal way to say it |
| Você fala inglês? |
| [slowly] Você fala inglês? |
| In Portuguese, verbs change depending on the pronoun that is used. Please notice the word “você” in the beginning of the sentence. This is the informal way to say “you”. The next word is the verb, falar, which means to speak. Because it is referring to “você” it is conjugated to você fala. |
| And you probably recognize “inglês” to be “English.” |
| Você fala inglês? |
| To learn how to properly conjugate verbs in Portuguese, like falar, please look at our Beginner series on PortuguesePod101.com. You can find very detailed grammar lessons and resources there! |
| If you are talking with young people or someone the same age as you, you can add a small word to sound more natural: moço meaning "boy" and moça, "girl." It is common to address the people around you like this. |
| moço |
| [slowly] moço |
| moça |
| [slowly] moça |
| Moço, você fala inglês? |
| Moça, você fala inglês? |
| Now, we’ll see how to talk with a person older than you. It is very easy! You just need to change “você” into “o senhor” or “a senhora”, that mean “sir” and “madam” in English. Everything else stays the same: |
| O senhor fala inglês? |
| [slowly] O senhor fala inglês? |
| A senhora fala inglês? |
| [slowly] A senhora fala inglês? |
| Adding com licença, "excuse-me", the sentence becomes more polite: |
| Com licença moço, você fala inglês? |
| [slowly] Com licença moço, você fala inglês? |
| or |
| Com licença, o senhor fala inglês? |
| [slowly] Com licença, o senhor fala inglês? |
| The responses you will receive could be one of these three: |
| Sim. "Yes." |
| [slowly] Sim. |
| Um pouco. "A little." |
| [slowly] Um pouco. |
| Não, eu não falo inglês. "No, I don’t speak English." |
| [slowly] Não, eu não falo inglês. |
| Since this last one is a negative statement, we need to say não before the verb, falar. It is conjugated in the first person, eu falo. So I don’t speak is Eu não falo. |
| Now it’s time for Paloma’s Point. |
| For those of you who are not only English speakers, you can obviously use this question with any language you need. |
| Some people in Brazil study other languages at school, so maybe you will get lucky! Just substitute inglês with… |
| italiano for Italian. |
| russo for Russian. |
| espanhol for Spanish. |
| alemão for German. |
| or any other language! |
| In this lesson we mentioned the expression com licença. But did you know that this could also be used as an apology? In the next lesson we will learn this and other ways to apologize in Portuguese. It’s never too late to show your good manners with Brazilian people! |
| I'll see you in our next Português em três minutos lesson. |
| Até mais! |
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