Greetings in European Portuguese

Greetings are the first thing anyone learns and one of the last things people get comfortable with, which sounds like a contradiction until you watch it happen. The vocabulary is tiny. There are three greetings for the time of day, two or three ways to ask how somebody is, and a small set of goodbyes.

The difficulty is not what any of them mean. It is knowing which one you are allowed to use, with whom, and at what hour, and Portugal is stricter about that than most places a learner has come from.

Bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite

These three carry most of the weight, and you will say them dozens of times a day. Portugal greets far more than Britain does. You greet the room when you walk into a small shop, you greet the person at the next table, you greet the bus driver.

• Bom dia, good day, though in practice it means good morning. It runs from whenever you get up until lunch.
• Boa tarde, good afternoon. It starts after lunch, which in Portugal is later than you might assume, and runs until dark.
• Boa noite, good evening and also good night. It starts when the light goes.

The thing that catches people out is that the boundaries are not on the clock. Bom dia does not end at twelve, it ends when the country has eaten. Boa tarde does not end at six, it ends when it gets dark, so in August you will still be saying it at half past eight in the evening.

If you are unsure, listen to what the other person says and give it back to them. Nobody minds, and in the fifteen minutes either side of a boundary the Portuguese are not sure themselves.

Boa noite does a second job that surprises English speakers, because it is both a hello and a goodbye. You use it walking into a restaurant at nine in the evening, and you use it again on the way out.

Olá, and the trouble with oi

Olá is the neutral hello, and it works with anybody, at any hour, in any register. If you learn one word from this article, learn that one.

Oi is where Brazilian material will trip you up. In Brazil it is a friendly hello. In Portugal, said with a rising intonation, oi? mostly means "sorry, what?" You will hear younger Portuguese people using it as a greeting, since Brazilian television and music are everywhere, but coming from a foreigner it lands oddly. Stay with olá until your ear tells you otherwise.

A student of mine spent a fortnight cheerfully greeting his landlady with oi, and she spent a fortnight assuming he had not heard her.

Asking how somebody is

Tudo bem? is the safe one. Literally it is "all well", it works as a question and as an answer, and it sits comfortably in almost any situation that is not formal.

Como está? is the polite form, and you use it with people you do not know, with anyone noticeably older, and in any shop, office or surgery.

Como estás? is the same question to a friend. The difference is a single letter and it is the difference between correct and slightly rude, so it is worth getting right early.

Why você can get you into trouble

This one genuinely matters, and it is the mistake I correct most often in a first lesson.

In Brazilian Portuguese, você is the ordinary word for "you". In European Portuguese it is not neutral. Depending on who you say it to it can sound distant, presumptuous, or plainly rude, and older people in particular will notice it.

Portugal solves this by mostly not using a pronoun at all. You conjugate the verb in the third person and let it do the work, so como está? already means "how are you?" without anybody needing to say você.

When you do need to name the person, use their title or their name.

• O senhor and a senhora for someone older or in any formal situation
• A Maria, o João, the definite article plus their first name, which is completely normal in Portugal and sounds strange only to foreigners
• Doutor or Doutora for a doctor, and in practice for anyone with a degree, which is used more than you would expect

The safest habit for a beginner is simple. Drop the pronoun, conjugate for tu with friends, and for the third person with everybody else.

Goodbyes

Adeus is a goodbye, and it is heavier than the dictionary suggests. It carries a sense of finality, so Portuguese people use it far less than a learner expects, and reaching for it as your default farewell sounds like you are leaving for good.

These are the ones you actually want.

• Até logo, see you later, and the workhorse of Portuguese goodbyes
• Até já, see you in a moment, for when you really will be back shortly
• Até amanhã, see you tomorrow
• Até à próxima, until next time, which is warm and slightly more final
• Chau, borrowed from Italian and spelled a few different ways, informal and very common

You can also just say boa tarde or boa noite on the way out, which is what most people do in shops.

What to do with your hands

Greetings in Portugal are physical more often than they are in Britain or the United States, and getting this wrong is only ever briefly awkward.

Between women, and between a man and a woman, two kisses on the cheek is normal in social situations, starting on your right. Between two men it is usually a handshake, though close friends and family will hug. In any professional setting a handshake covers everything.

If you are not sure, wait half a second and follow what the other person starts. That half second is invisible and nobody has ever been offended by it.

Common questions

What are the five most useful Portuguese greetings?

Olá, bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite and tudo bem? will carry you through almost any day in Portugal. Add até logo for leaving and you have the whole set.

How do you say hello in European Portuguese?

Olá in any situation, or the greeting for the time of day, which is what most people actually use. Bom dia until lunch, boa tarde until dark, boa noite after that.

Is você rude in Portugal?

It can be, which is not the same as always. It is not the neutral word for "you" that it is in Brazil, and with an older person or a stranger it can sound cold. Conjugating the verb in the third person and leaving the pronoun out avoids the question entirely.

What is the difference between bom dia and boa tarde?

Lunch, more than the clock. Bom dia runs until the country has eaten, which is later than most visitors assume, and boa tarde takes over from there until it gets dark.

How do Portuguese people answer the phone?

Estou? or Estou sim?, literally "I am", which makes no sense translated and is completely standard. You will also hear está lá?, meaning "are you there?" Neither has any equivalent in Brazilian Portuguese, where people say alô.

Where to practise them

Greetings are the easiest thing to rehearse before you arrive, because they are short, they repeat, and you will use them within a minute of landing.

Read them out loud rather than silently, since bom dia said badly is still fine while bom dia only ever read on a page tends to come out with English vowels. The pronunciation guide covers what those vowels are doing.

The Learning Library has free graded readings that open with exactly these exchanges, and O Pedro is a sensible first one. If you would like somebody to greet you back and correct you when the register slips, that is what a first lesson is for.

Nuno