How to say “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” in Portuguese?

But how do you say “thank you very much”? What is the verb for “to thank” or “to be thankful”? How do you express your gratitude in writing or when talking with people you respect? How do you thank people you don’t know?

Read more: How to say “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” in Portuguese?

And remember: you can always click here to check the Portuguese version of this page and try to follow along. You can check the Portuguese version of any page simply by pressing the Portuguese flag at the top of every page

Why is the Portuguese “thank you” gendered?

Portuguese is a gendered language which means that nouns have a feminine and a masculine form. (There’s worse out there, there’s languages with 3 genders. Portuguese, technically, still has the neuter too. I’ll address this in a future post very soon!)

So, this all means that, in Portuguese, very common words and expressions will often match either the speaker or the person being spoken to and their gender, and this also affects the thank you expressions.

Our “thank you” expression comes from an old form of “much obliged”, which came from an adjective, and adjectives still match both gender and number of the noun they describe. With time, we lost the number part, but kept the gender of this expression.

Some male speakers will also say Obrigada as a way to appear politer. This is not true, if you want to speak more formally there’s better alternatives.

How do you say “thank you very much” in Portugal?

This part is easy. Since this came from an adjective, we do it as we do with adjectives: just attach “very” to “thank you” in Portuguese:

Muito obrigado. Muitíssimo obrigado.                Muito obrigada.

You can attach as many “muito” as you’d like, the same way you do with “so” in English:

Muito, muito, muito, muito obrigada!                 Thank you so, so, so, so much!

And since there are two ways to make adjectives more intensive in Portuguese, we can also say:

Obrigadíssimo.                                                             Obrigadíssima.

However, the most frequent way to increase intensity for this expression is to say

Muitíssimo obrigado.                                                Muitíssimo obrigada.

This happens as “muito obrigado” is as much standard as “obrigado”, except it is bit little politer (we are always so appreciative when we’re being polite!) so we automatically go and increase the already intensive version.

I recommend you use “Muitíssimo obrigado/a” in spoken language, not in written language. Speaking, it’s really great, but if you want to be very appreciative and very polite in writing, there’s better ways. We always go through a lot of trouble to be polite in writing.

What’s a more polite way to say “thank you” in Portuguese?

So, as explained before, with extra politeness, comes extra intensity. And, if you want to increase the level of thankfulness another notch, we need to change the expression.

In English this also occurs to intensify a bit more your thankfulness, as you can say something like “I really appreciated that”.

What is the Portuguese verb for “to thank”?

This magical verb in Portuguese is agradecer. Here’s the present tense conjugation for you. I’ve highlighted the endings, as that’s the only part that changes in regular verbs:

Eu agradeço

Tu agradeces

Ele agradece

Nós agradecemos

Eles agradecem

When we use the verb agradecer, it sometimes needs a preposition when we attach the person to whom we wish to express our gratitude or appreciation.

Agradecer a alguém                     To thank someone

Agradecer ao meu avô                To thank my grandfather

Unlike in English, when we refer to the thing we are thankful for, we frequently don’t use a preposition:

Agradecer algo                               To thank for something

Agradeço-te as flores.                  I thank you for the flowers.

We just use a preposition when we’re not thanking an object, but we’re expressing the reason for which we’re thankful.

Agradeço pela atenção.               I am thankful for your attention.

Agradeço a atenção.                     I thank you for your attention.

But don’t worry too much. This is a very small detail, and usually people don’t really know when they add it or not, they just do. Sometimes, people will add the preposition to sound politer, like they do with “Obrigada”. That’s not really how it works and no one knows and no one cares, really.

You will find that when people speak in the present, since the reason for their thanks is still very much alive in the context, they will skip the preposition. When people talk in the past tense, or they are thanking someone now for something that was done in the past, they will usually add the preposition to explain why they are thanking someone.

Já te agradeci-te por teres vindo.             I already thanked you for coming.

Ele agradeceu-me pelas flores.                He thanked me for the flowers.

How to generally express appreciation politely?

Since this Portuguese verb has a few more uses than “to thank”, it can also be translated as “be thankful” or “to have appreciated” in English:

Agradeço o teu gesto.                  I thank you for your gesture.

                                                           I am thankful for your gesture.

                                                           I appreciated your gesture, thank you.

So, using the verb agradecer in the present tense is a very polite way to express your thanks. We also combine it with our to be verb that creates temporary states:

Estou-te muito agradecido.                                      I am very thankful to you.

Eu devia estar mais agradecido.                             I should be more thankful.

Here are a few more example sentences.

Obrigada. Agradeço(-lhe) muito.                                          Thank you.Really, thank you so much.

                              Formal, used to reinforce your thanks in situations where you respect the person you’re talking to, or you don’t know them that well, or in contexts in which you don’t want to say “thank you so so so much!!” because being genuinely happy sounds too juvenile.

Agradeço desde já a sua atenção.                         Thank you in advance for your attention.

                              Formal, used in emails, usually filler expression.

Estou muito agradecida pelo que fizeste.            I’m very thankful for what you did.

                              Very high praise, usually people don’t make things that warrant this expression being used. So it’s usually said before you disappoint someone.

How do you say “you’re welcome” in Portuguese?

The expression “you’re welcome” in Portuguese is just like in Spanish and in French:

De nada.                                          Lit: of nothing

This is genderless, and does not need to match the number of speakers or listeners.

It’s a very bland expression, and usually in less formal contexts we add a complaining or shocked “oh” before it, to really wave away any sense of obligation to return the gesture for the thing that was done. If the context is really quite informal, just an overly exaggerated OH is enough.

Don’t forget: our “thank you” is really a descendant of “much obliged”, to be indebted to someone after something is done in our favor.

Because of this, we don’t say “no problem” (não tem mal). My interpretation is that it publicly acknowledges the debt, but doesn’t address how it is settled like the other expressions we use. It just acknowledges that doing the initial favor was possible. Don’t do it.

Similarly, you might hear “it’s ok” (tudo bem) together with a very expressive OH sometimes, or with a broad dismissive hand gesture, but never alone with a smile like you do in English. That would be also very pretentious of you, again acknowledging that someone is now indebted to you.

Expressions we actually use in Portuguese to express “you’re welcome”:

Não é nada.                                    It is nothing (less frequent, more informal because the verb doesn’t quite match the past action, and this is an expression that usually refers to price)

Não foi nada.                                  It was nothing (the way better alternative)

Saying “Don’t worry” is also frequent, but actually more complicated because you need to match the verb “to worry” with the speakers, and it’s a reflexive verb with a pronoun:

Não te preocupes.                        (tu, singular, informal)

Não se preocupe.                          (você, o sr/a srª, singular, formal)

Não se preocupem.                      (plural, there’s no formal or informal)

Another one is very frequent expression is:

Não tem de quê.                           (“you owe me nothing in return”)

However, bear in mind you need to use the verb TER and match this to the people you’re speaking with. The example above is singular, formal (você, o sr, a srª)

And as a bonus: since we do have so many alternatives and our thanking expressions run so deep, we’re quick to dismiss the thanks we get as thoroughly as we can, and we speak fast, so we usually combine more than one expression.

Oh, de nada, não te preocupes.             

Oh, não tem de quê, não foi nada.

Não tens de quê, não te preocupes.

I hope you enjoyed this piece.

If you have further questions or if you’re Portuguese and have some corrections or additions, if there are other expressions you use or if you disagree with me or even with my politeness rating, please let me know. Muito obrigada!