What this is about
Subject pronouns are the words that say WHO does the action — I, you, she, we. Portuguese has a tidy set, but two of them work differently from English: você (you) behaves grammatically like "he/she", and spoken Brazil has an extra "we" (a gente) that textbooks used to hide. Here is the whole system.
The set
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| eu | I | nós | we |
| você | you | vocês | you all |
| ele / ela | he / she | eles / elas | they (m / f) |
How to use them
| Eu falo português. | eu → the -o form |
| Você fala inglês? | você → the ele/ela form |
| Elas moram juntas. | elas = a group of women |
| Eles trabalham aqui. | eles = men OR a mixed group |
a gente — the second "we"
Spoken Brazil constantly replaces nós with a gente (literally "the people"). It means "we" but takes the ele/ela verb form:
| A gente vai à praia. | = Nós vamos à praia. |
| A gente se vê amanhã! | see you tomorrow! (lit. we see each other) |
Exceptions & details
1 · Dropping pronouns: the verb ending already shows the person, so Brazilians often skip the pronoun: Sou de Londres. Falamos depois! Keep them while learning.
2 · tu: alive in the South and parts of the Northeast, usually with the você-form (tu fala). Recognize it; use você.
3 · Mixed groups are masculine: 99 women + 1 man = eles. That is just how the grammar works.
4 · "it": Portuguese has no "it" — things are ele/ela by their gender: Onde está o carro? Ele está na rua.
Practise this chapter
8 pool questions plus generated ones — 20 fresh practice questions, reshuffled every visit, inside the grammar library.
Practise Subject pronouns — 20 questions →This chapter is taught in Lição 1 of the course — free, no account needed. Rumo is a complete Brazilian Portuguese course, A1 to B2; level A1 is free.