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Switching between "tu" and "você" Topic is solved

Moderator: Explorer

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EranBarLev
Israel

Switching between "tu" and "você"

Post by EranBarLev »

The story "Sneaking Around part 1" has the following dialogue:

Márcia: O que você está fazendo?
Pâmela: Indo pro escritório do meu chefe.
Márcia: Ah, desculpa. Então, liga para mim depois.

But I thought that "desculpa" and "liga" are the congugations for "tu", but Márcia addresses Pâmela as "você", so why doesn't she use the conjugations for "você" which are supposed to be "desculpe" and "ligue"?

Later we also have:

Márcia: Sai daí!
Pâmela: Se eu sair, eles vão me ver!
Márcia: Faça alguma coisa!

Again, "sai" is for "tu" (for "você" it's "saia") but "faça" is for "você" (for "tu" it's "faz").
It looks like they just switch freely between "tu" and "você". What's going on here? :?

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Explorer
Portugal

Re: Switching between "tu" and "você"

Post by Explorer »

EranBarLev wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:04 am

I thought that "desculpa" and "liga" are the congugations for "tu", but Márcia addresses Pâmela as "você", so why doesn't she use the conjugations for "você" which are supposed to be "desculpe" and "ligue"?

I think that's typical in some varieties of Brazilian Portuguese. In some States (i.e. Rio de Janeiro) people sometimes use Você but conjugate the verbs as if they were using Tu, especially in imperative sentences, which seems to be the case here, and when using the futuro próximo tense (ir + infinitive).

So it's not uncommon to hear people saying things like "vai agora! você vai se atrasar!".

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John Little
Brazil

Re: Sneaking Around part 1 - "tu" / "você"

Post by John Little »

My experience of duolingo is that there are errors and inconsistences that are forgivable until you get unfairly thrown out on your last heart.

It is worth using the "flag" system to raise these issues and I have had a number of corrections/additions accepted. But it can be confusing.

John661162

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EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Switching between "tu" and "você"

Post by EranBarLev »

I came across this phenomenon again at a Duolingo event with a hostess from Brazil. Even though she's a Portuguese teacher, she mixes the two forms in her speech. However, she said that when writing a text in formal situations, they pay more attention to normative usage. Questions about this adequacy are common in exams, such as entrance exams.

Credit: Juliana Rocha

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EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Switching between "tu" and "você"

Post by EranBarLev »

[mention]Explorer[/mention], why do we have 2 copies of the same post? It's confusing. Is it possible to merge them?

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Explorer
Portugal

Re: Switching between "tu" and "você"

Post by Explorer »

[mention]EranBarLev[/mention] Thanks for letting me know. The topic is about a story, but it's also about an aspect of the Portuguese grammar. That's why I made a copy of it some time ago. Anyway I think you're right that it can be somewhat confusing to have the same topic in different subforums. I just moved all the original posts here and deleted the other one.

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