GRAMMAR ATLAS

Grammar anchored in cities and cultural reality.

Grammar should feel lived-in. Each pattern connects to a city, a situation, a cultural moment — not to an isolated exercise.

você vs. tu

the pronoun divide

Most of Brazil uses "você" for you (informal + formal). The South and some of the Northeast still use "tu" — sometimes with incorrect verb conjugation in speech.

pronounsregisterA1

voceRegions: São Paulo, Rio interior, most of Brazil
tuRegions: Porto Alegre, Floripa, Recife, Belém

Gerúndio vs. infinitivo

I am going vs. vou indo

Brazilian Portuguese uses gerunds ("estou falando") where European Portuguese uses infinitives ("estou a falar"). This is one of the clearest BR/PT splits.

verb formsBR vs PTA2

brazilian: Estou falando com você
european: Estou a falar contigo

Clitic placement

me diz vs. diz-me

In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, object pronouns almost always come before the verb. European Portuguese places them after. Spoken BR is far less formal than the written standard.

syntaxBR vs PTB1

spoken: Me diz uma coisa
written: Diz-me uma coisa