'Obrigado' or 'obrigada'? Polite words that change with gender
In English, thank you and welcome never change. In Portuguese, a few everyday polite formulas are really adjectives, so they change their ending for gender, like any adjective describing a person. A man says obrigado, a woman says obrigada. You say bem-vindo to a man and bem-vinda to a woman.
The tricky part is working out whose gender counts. With obrigado, it is the person saying thank you. With bem-vindo, it is the person being welcomed. English speakers often learn one form as a fixed word and then use it for everyone. That is the mistake this article helps you avoid.
Obrigado literally means obliged. When you say it, you are describing yourself: I am obliged (to you). So it agrees with you, the speaker. Who you are talking to makes no difference.
Bem-vindo literally means well come, as in you have come well. It describes the person arriving, so it agrees with them. It also agrees in number: bem-vindos for a group or a mixed group, bem-vindas for a group of women or girls.
Rule of thumb: thanks describe the speaker, welcomes describe the guest.
obrigado and obrigada. Choose the form that matches your own gender. A woman thanking a man still says obrigada. To say what you are thankful for, add por, which combines with the article: pelo, pela.
muito obrigado and muito obrigada. Adding muito changes nothing about the agreement. Muito stays the same, and only the ending of obrigado changes.
bem-vindo and bem-vinda. Here you look at the guest. You will often hear the longer form with seja or sejam.
In Portugal, people often say santinho when someone sneezes. It works like bem-vindo: it describes the person who sneezed, so some speakers say santinha to a woman.
- Do not copy the other person. If a woman says obrigada to you and you are a man, you answer with obrigado (or de nada, you're welcome). Your own gender decides.
- Do not use the guest's gender for thanks. A man thanking his female host says obrigado, never obrigada, even though he is talking to a woman.
- Signs and general welcomes addressed to everyone use the masculine: bem-vindo or, very often, the plural bem-vindos.
- Groups thanking together usually just say obrigado. You may hear obrigadas from a group of women, but you do not need it.
- Santinho is regional. It is typical of Portugal. In Brazil, people usually say saúde, which never changes its form.
Thanks describe the speaker, welcomes describe the guest. Say obrigado or muito obrigado if you are a man, and obrigada or muito obrigada if you are a woman, whoever you are talking to. Say bem-vindo, bem-vinda, bem-vindos or bem-vindas to match the person or people arriving.