você

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• vossemecê (obsolete)
• vosmecê (obsolete)
• cê (slang, Brazil)
• ocê (eye dialect, rural areas of Brazil)
• vc (internet slang)
• vç (internet slang)

Etymology

Syncope of vosmecê, elision of vossemecê, contraction of Old Portuguese vossa mercee. Compare with the Spanish usted (from vuestra merced, also literally "your mercy") and Catalan vosté.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /voˈse/

Pronoun

você (plural vocês)

1. (Portugal) you (singular, semi-formal)
2. (Brazil) you (singular, informal or semi-formal, depending on the region)
   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Lya Wyler, Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix, Rocco, page 227:

     Pensei que você tivesse dito que ela estava só mandando você escrever!

     I thought that you have said that she was just ordering you to write!

Synonyms

• o senhor, tu

Usage notes

• In Portugal and some parts of Brazil, você represents an intermediate degree of formality between tu (familiar) and o senhor (very formal) and should be used in situations of little intimacy.
• In some parts of Brazil (mainly the Southeast, with the exception of some cities), você has replaced tu as the informal second person singular pronoun. And tu is relegated to archaic, poetic and religious usages. In Rio de Janeiro, tu is used in very informal situations, but with the third-person singular of the verb.
• In informal occasions in Brazil, despite using você as the subjective and tonic subjective pronoun, the atone pronoun is te, from tu.
• Its plural form, vós, is rarely used in Brazilian Portuguese and is nowadays mostly confined to some northern dialects of European Portuguese.
• "Você" and vocês, despite being 2nd person, should always take 3rd-person verbs.

See also

Portuguese personal pronouns (edit)
Number	Person	Nominative (subject)		Objective (direct object)		Objective (indirect object)	Reflexive	Prepositional		Prepositional with com		Non-declining
		m	f	m	f	m and f	m and f	m	f	m	f	m	f
Singular	First	eu		me				mim		comigo
	Second	tu		te				ti		contigo		você
												o senhor	a senhora
	Third	ele	ela	o (lo, no)	a (la, na)	lhe	se	ele	ela	com ele	com ela
								si (reflexive)		consigo (reflexive)
Plural	First	nós		nos				nós		conosco		a gente
	Second	vós		vos				vós		convosco		vocês
												os senhores	as senhoras
	Third	eles	elas	os (los, nos)	as (las, nas)	lhes	se	eles	elas	com eles	com elas
								si (reflexive)		consigo (reflexive)
Impersonal							se	si		consigo