We are very informal in Brazil:
- we talk to each other calling our first names, and
- we don’t use to call people by their surnames.
Usually Brazilians have two surnames:
- the middle one is from their mother’s family, and
- the last one is from their father’s family.
For example:
- my name is Thaís Lôbo Junqueira;
- my mother’s family surname is Lôbo;
- my father’s family surname is Junqueira.
P.S.: Legally we can have two surnames, unless you do not want to.
German people here give only one surname to their children, for example.
It is common here to have a compound name:
- my mother’s name is Maria Helena (two words) but
- my name is Thaís (one word).
Asian people, like Japanese etc, have a compound name here, in order to help us to pronounce their names:
- my Japanese friend is called Lúcia Naomi;
- Lúcia is her Portuguese name;
- Naomi is her Japanese name.
We say:
- Oi! = hi!
- Olá! = hello!
- Alô? = hello? ( for phone calls )
- Como vai você? = How are you?
- Eu vou bem, obrigado (man) = I’m fine, thanks.
- Eu vou bem, obrigada (woman) = I’m fine, thanks.
- Beijo(s) = kiss(es)
- Tchau = bye
- Até logo = see you soon
- Adeus = farewell
P.S.: We use the ending -o for man, and -a for woman. Ex.:
- Obrigado (man) = thanks;
- Obrigada (woman) = thanks.
But we don’t change the ending when we say:
- muito obrigado (man and woman ) = thank you very much
As we do not use declination anymore, it remained only:
- the -o, -a endings for gender and
- the -s ending for plural.
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