A while back I was on the phone with CTT, the Portuguese post office, trying to track a package.
The woman on the line said something like “Já o fizemos” (We already did it). Except it wasn’t a clean “o.” It came out so fast that it sounded like a single word, “Jáofizémos”, with that little o melted right into the verb.
I had no clue what she’d said.
For months, maybe longer, I kept hearing these little words, the ones I now know are called object pronouns (o, a, os, as), getting glued in front of verbs or stuck onto the end and I never understood why.
Textbooks showed me tidy, hyphenated words like fizemo-lo, yet, observationally, almost nobody around me talked that way.
So I started asking Portuguese friends about it. The gist of what they told me is that these pronouns behave very differently in real conversation than they do in written Portuguese.
The book rules aren’t wrong, per se, Portuguese people just speak differently than they write, I guess.
Once you know what to listen for, though, things start to make a lot more sense. That’s what this guide is for.
The Basic Object Pronouns
When you get into more intermediate Portuguese, you’ll begin to encounter what’re called “object pronouns”: me, te, o/a, nos, os/as. s They matter, and they also trip people up for a few reasons:
- They tend to stick to verbs, which changes how the verb sounds. In fast speech they get shortened, swallowed, or swapped out (ie. jáofizémos).
- Textbooks lean on hyphenated forms like fi-lo and fizemo-lo that at least I myself have almost never heard out in the wild.
In daily speech, I often hear people reach for a simpler word instead, usually isso (“that”), and let context fill in the rest.
| English | Textbook Portuguese | Spoken Portuguese |
|---|---|---|
| We did it | Fizemo-lo | Fizemos isso |
| I saw it | Vi-o | Vi isso |
| I’ll buy it | Comprá-lo-ei | Vou comprar isso |
| Did you read it? | Leste-o? | Leste isso? |
| I want it | Quero-o | Quero isso |
| We sent them | Enviámo-los | Enviámos isso |
| He sold it | Vendeu-o | Vendeu isso |
| I found it | Encontrei-o | Encontrei isso |
Sometimes the rules you learn on paper don’t quite match what comes out of people’s mouths.
Textbooks vs. Real Speech
In written Portuguese, the pronoun typically follows the verb with a hyphen: fizemo-lo, comprá-lo, vi-o.
In spoken Portuguese, however, one of three things tends to happen:
- The pronoun jumps in front of the verb, usually triggered by a word like já or não (ex: Já o fizemos).
- It gets swapped for a simpler word like isso.
- It vanishes completely when the meaning is already obvious.
A quick contrast:
| Style | Sentence |
|---|---|
| Formal | Fi-lo ontem. |
| Real life | Fiz isso ontem. |
And a fuller comparison:
| English | Formal / Written | Colloquial Speech |
|---|---|---|
| I did it | Fi-lo | Fiz isso |
| We sent it | Enviámo-lo | Enviámos isso |
| Did you see it? | Viste-o? | Viste isso? |
| I opened it | Abri-o | Abri isso |
| We finished it | Terminámo-lo | Terminámos isso |
| Did you buy it? | Compraste-o? | Compraste isso? |
| She cooked it | Cozinhou-o | Cozinhou isso |
| They closed it | Fecharam-no | Fecharam isso |
[!warning] Textbook vs Real Life Textbooks lean hard on hyphenated forms like fizemo-lo.
In conversation, that’s not usually what comes out. What I hear instead is:
- Já fizemos isso.
- Já fizemos. (when the context is clear)
- Já o fizemos. (still natural, just a touch more careful)
When the Pronoun After the Verb Sounds Normal
There are times when sticking the pronoun onto the end of the verb really does sound natural in everyday speech.
This tends to happen in two cases: when the pronoun refers to a person (me, te, nos), and when the verb is reflexive and the action loops back on the subject.
It’s less about the word being short and more about the action being aimed at a person. Take amo-te (I love you), where the action lands on te. Or chamo-me Ana (I call myself/my name is Ana). Or diz-me (tell me), where the verb is pointed straight at me.
[!tip] Brazilian pronouns come before the verb
In Brazilian Portuguese, which some of you might have heard before, the pronoun almost always sits before the verb (Eu te amo, Eu me chamo).
| English | European PT | Brazilian PT |
|---|---|---|
| I love you | Amo-te | Eu te amo |
| I hate you | Odeio-te | Eu te odeio |
| My name is Ana | Chamo-me Ana | Eu me chamo Ana |
| Tell me | Diz-me | Me diz |
| Help me | Ajuda-me | Me ajuda |
| Give me that | Dá-me isso | Me dá isso |
There’s lots of Brazilians in Portugal, so this is just something to be mindful when speaking with them. If they say the pronoun before the verb, that’s just a difference in the dialects, but it still means the same thing!
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Using isso as a Casual Substitute
Most speakers I hear skip the object-pronoun rules entirely and just grab a simpler word.
Instead of vi-o (I saw it), it’s usually vi isso (I saw that). It flows better and sounds more like something a person would actually say.
| English | Textbook Portuguese | Spoken Portuguese |
|---|---|---|
| I saw it | Vi-o | Vi isso |
| We bought it | Comprámo-lo | Comprámos isso |
| Did you hear it? | Ouviste-o? | Ouviste isso? |
| She explained it | Explicou-o | Explicou isso |
When aquilo Fits Better Than isso
Isso is a great everyday default, but aquilo turns up just as often in real life. The difference between them is distance.
Isso points at something close by, or something the two of you have just been talking about, so it’s “topically close.”
Aquilo points at something further off, whether that’s across the room, further back in time, or just more vague and abstract.
In English, we lean on “that” for both. For example, “Did you hear that?” could refer either a near or far-away sound. Of course, you could just use isso in a far-away situation, but technically-speaking, Aquilo is the better fit.
| English | Spoken Portuguese |
|---|---|
| Did you see that? (right here) | Viste isso? |
| What’s that over there? | O que é aquilo? |
| I didn’t like that (the whole situation) | Não gostei daquilo* |
| That was strange | Aquilo foi estranho |
When you’re unsure, isso is the safer pick. Reach for aquilo only when the thing feels a step removed.
Why is it “daquilo” in the example above? Because you always need to add “de” after all instances of “gostar”. Rather than saying “Não gostei de aquilo”, it gets collapsed into “Não gostei daquilo.”
Read more about this in my guide to Portuguese verbs requiring de.
[!tip] What if the “it” is a person? With a person, isso simply isn’t an option. You’d never call someone isso (“that”), since it sounds like you’re talking about an object, not a human.
So “him” becomes o and “her” becomes a, and just like the amo-te (I love you) and diz-me (tell me) forms you saw earlier, these stay perfectly normal in everyday speech when a person is involved.
Ask “Viste o Pedro?” (Did you see Pedro?) and the natural reply is “Sim, vi-o ontem” (Yes, I saw him yesterday), or vi-a ontem when reffering to a “her”.
NEVER use Sim, vi isso. (Yes, I saw it.)
Verbs With Prepositions
Some verbs naturally pair with prepositions like de (of / about) or em (in / on), and for those, these little o/a pronouns just don’t work.
You don’t “think it” (pensar o); you “think about it” (pensar nisso, where nisso = em + isso).
Liking something uses the same logic: English “I like it” looks like a clean object, but in Portuguese you like of something (gosto de), so it’s gosto disso, never gosto-isso. And talking about something is falar disso (falar + de + isso), never falar o.
The formal future Pensá-lo-ei (I will think it), while technically fine, feels overly formal. The “natural” structure is Vou pensar nisso (I will think about it) and is the one that actually comes up.
| English | Spoken |
|---|---|
| We talked about it | Falámos disso |
| I liked it | Gostei disso |
| I’ll think about it | Vou pensar nisso |
Dropping the Pronoun in Fast Speech
In quick conversation, when the context is obvious, the pronoun often just disappears. No o, no a, no isso.
Say you’re holding a package and a friends asks you about it. They might just say Já abriste? (Have you already opened it?). No pronoun needed, the situation does the work.
Note: I’m using “isso” for my examples here, but this same thing applies regardless if the pronoun is -o, -os, -a, -as, etc. They all get dropped.
| English | With Isso | Without Isso |
|---|---|---|
| We did it | Fizemos isso | Já fizemos |
| Have you opened it? | Abriste isso? | Já abriste? |
| They already sent it | Enviaram isso | Já enviaram |
| I watched it | Vi isso | Já vi |
| She finished it | Terminou isso | Já terminou |
[!tip] On “Já”
Já technically means already, but the Portuguese add this to seemingly everything, even when we wouldn’t use already in English.
Saying “we did it” becomes “já fizemos” even though that technically translates to “we already did it”.
Kinda confusing at first, but you’ll hear it all the time.
Final Thoughts
Pronouns like -o -a, -os, and -as are common in written, or more formal Portuguese. They technically mean “him/her”, or “it” as an inanimate object, masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Spoken Portuguese, however, is often more simplified lest you’re speaking about a person (-o, -a) or a group of people (-os, -as).
A few things worth holding onto:
- Hyphenated object forms (fi-lo, comprá-lo) mostly live in writing.
- For things, conversation usually goes with isso (which translates to that).
- Attached-to-the-end forms like amo-te (I love you) and diz-me (tell me) are common and natural when the subject is a person.
- When in doubt, lean on the context around you.
If you don’t catch every o, a, os, as whizzing past or being swallowed hole, don’t worry about it. People mess up pronouns in English all the time and the conversation still rolls along no problem.
For the bigger picture of how Portuguese sentences fit together, take a look at my guide to Portuguese sentence structure.
Frequently Asked Questions
[!faq]- Do I need to learn the hyphenated forms if people don’t say them? Yes, but mostly for reading. Newspapers, books, and official documents use them. For speaking, focus on natural alternatives like fiz isso (I did it), or just dropping the pronoun fiz (I did) when the meaning is clear.
[!faq]- Can I always use isso instead of o or a for objects? In casual conversation, pretty much. It’s a safe, common default. As you get more comfortable, you’ll start to feel when you can drop it entirely and when the formal o/a fits better.
[!faq]- Why is it so hard to hear these pronouns in fast speech? Because the sounds blend together. Já o vi (I already saw it) often lands as one word, something close to “Jáhvi.” It’s a bit like how “I am going to” collapses into “I’m gonna” in English.
[!faq]- If someone drops a pronoun, how do I know what they mean? Context does most of the work. If you’ve been talking about a film and your friend says Já vi, you know they mean the film. The more real life conversation you hear, the more your brain fills the gaps on its own.
[!faq]- Is this different in Brazilian Portuguese? Yes, though the practical result is often similar. In Brazilian Portuguese the pronoun usually sits before the verb (eu te amo), and in casual speech people also tend to default to isso or drop the pronoun for objects.
