In Portuguese, asking questions does not require complicated inversion rules as French does or the use of auxiliaries and inversion as English does. For the most part, questions are asked by using a rising intonation at the end of the utterance. Below are some examples of “yes-no” questions:

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Questions in Portuguese

In order to ask a question in Portuguese, simply raise the tone of the last word in the utterance. In very colloquial speech in English this is also done. Have you ever heard people say “You're going?” instead of “Are you going?” These two sentences have similar meanings, at least superficially. The first example, “You're going?”, implies that the speaker is surprised about the fact that listener is leaving, as suggested by contextual evidence. The second sentence, “Are you going?”, is simply a yes-no question that shows that the speaker really wants information that is not contextually available. In any case, Portuguese speakers use the first type of sentence to ask a yes-no question.

Exercise: Is It a Question?

Listen to the utterance and decide if it is uma pergunta (a question) or uma afirmação (a statement). Check the script and answers in Appendix C.

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