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Vós in regular speech (Portuguese) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 9 of 21 23 August 2013 at 1:33am | IP Logged | ||
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When and to whom would you address someone as você and vocês in Portugal? And is o vosso used as the possessive adjective of voces?
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| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4835 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 10 of 21 23 August 2013 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
Since você is just the singular of vocês one would expect it to simply be the corresponding singular pronoun. Interestingly, however, its usage is quite different. As I explained before, vocês has become the dominant variant in colloquial speech when it comes to informal treatment and you just can't go wrong with it. In fact, if you're in the same age range as I am (I'm 24), it would even sound slightly odd if you used vós regularly. That said, every other 2nd person plural pronoun still comes from vós. So stuff like vosso (possessive), or -vos (indirect object) is still universal. Like I said before, it seems to me that people don't really have a problem with vós, they just want to avoid the somewhat strange verbal forms that are associated with it. So here's a typical sentence using 2nd person plural pronouns: "Vocês trouxeram o vosso carro?" "Did you(pl.) bring your (pl.) car?" If you want to treat a group of people more formally, though, you could refer to them as "Os senhores" (or "As senhoras" if that group is composed exclusively of women). Notice, however, that vós is also no longer an option in this formal register and above it. As for você, it is (perhaps surprisingly) not an informal pronoun. Tu still completely dominates in that register. Você is used mostly by people who want to treat the person they're speaking to in a respectful way but feel that something like "O/A senhor(a)" is too formal. Some will even completely replace "O/A senhor(a)" by você. However, a lot of people (including me), feel that você is substandard and avoid it altogether. So if I want to tone down the formality a little I might simply refer to them by o or a followed by their given name while still using 3rd person verbal forms. Something like this: "O José sabe onde fica o posto de correio mais próximo?" "Do you (José) know where the closest post office is?" Both approaches are quite common and you'll likely find both but I would say that not using você is the preferred option among educated people. Finally, and this goes for both plural and singular, since Portuguese enjoys a certain freedom when it comes to mentioning the subject or not, if you want to treat somebody formally but are not sure about which level of formality is appropriate (it can be a little tricky sometimes) you might simply not commit to any given label and just use 3rd person conjugations. So the examples I gave above would become: "Trouxeram o carro?" "Did you(pl.) bring the car?" (In fact in this case it even works informally because vocês also uses a 3rd person conjugation) "Sabe onde fica o posto de correio mais próximo?" "Do you know where the closest post office is?" Edited by MarcoLeal on 23 August 2013 at 10:39am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| umiak Groupie Poland Joined 4513 days ago 51 posts - 77 votes Speaks: Polish* | Message 11 of 21 23 August 2013 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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What about vos/vosso used as a second person plural pronoun? Are they informal as in:
Vi-vos ontem na paragem. [I saw you yesterday (2nd person plural) at the bus stop.) Ontem vi a vossa irmã. (Yesterday I saw your sister.) If such sentences are used how do we know if the speaker means 'vos' refering to 'vocês' or to 'vós'? Edited by umiak on 24 August 2013 at 12:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 12 of 21 23 August 2013 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your clear explanation MarcoLeal.
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| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4835 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 13 of 21 23 August 2013 at 11:30am | IP Logged | ||
So yeah, vosso and vos are still the default. As for your second question, does the person mean vocês or vós when they use these pronouns? If all you're given is the vos or vosso you can't tell. You'll have to see how that person builds a sentence in which vós or vocês would be the subject. The pronoun doesn't actually have to be there you can figure it out by noticing which verbal form they use. But if you think about it it doesn't really matter. Vocês and vós are equivalent from the point of view of meaning. They are both 2nd person plural pronouns. So knowing if the person would normally use vós or vocês only tells you which pronoun that person prefers (which will most likely be vocês) and nothing about meaning. Edited by MarcoLeal on 23 August 2013 at 12:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anime Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6361 days ago 161 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Spanish, Swedish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese, French, Russian | Message 14 of 21 23 August 2013 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually the majority of Spanish speakers do NOT use vosotros 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 15 of 21 23 August 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Portuguese people use vocês with vos
just like Brazilians use você with te, it's the same phenomenon, only the number is different. Você sabe que eu te amo. (ptbr) [Sabes que te amo in Portugal] Vocês sabem que vos amo. (ptpt) [Vocês sabem que eu amo vocês in Brazil]. Você sabe que eu amo você is correct according to normative grammar and is used both in informal and formal speech in Brazil. Vocês sabem que os amo., while correct in Portugal, sounds extremely formal. (in Brazil it sounds even more formal). Edited by Medulin on 23 August 2013 at 7:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 16 of 21 24 August 2013 at 6:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I know that the majority of speakers of Spanish do not use vosotros, but what I meant
was that it is used in a daily context in Spain, where it surely is used, and probably learnt in school as well (at least when I was in Spanish classes, vosotros was almost always used for dialogues unless the register was very formal, for example in a speech or something, then Vds. was used like vocês in Portuguese), whilst vós in Portuguese, from what I read here, seems to not have this case. I suppose it is interesting this case in Portuguese, and I suppose if someone said to friends, "Então, o que vós fazeis agora, os meus amigos?" or "No que pensais, ides lá ao cinema connosco hoje?" it would sound odd. I hope to holiday in Porto (and perhaps Braga and Coimbra) sometime in the next few years, so I will try to see what I hear. I suppose it has a sort of situation similar to the passé simple or subjonctif imparfait in French, where it is not used often in speech, but usually in formal written texts. Edited by 1e4e6 on 24 August 2013 at 7:27am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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