Making business phone calls: Giving your name and contact details

💬 recado is a message passed on by someone else. A written text or email is a mensagem.

💬 Chamo-me literally means "I call myself". The me attaches after the verb with a hyphen, which is normal in Portugal.

🇵🇹 Desculpe is the polite form for strangers and business calls. Among friends, people say desculpa.

💬 Pode + a verb is a handy polite request. Try Pode falar mais devagar? "Can you speak more slowly?"

💬 In Portugal, apelido means surname, not nickname. Your first name is o nome próprio "first name".

💬 pode + an action is the easy polite way to ask someone to do something. Try pode soletrar? "could you spell it?" when a name is tricky.

💬 o seu is the polite "your" used with people you don't know. Swap the end to ask for other details: qual é o seu email? "what's your email?"

💬 An s at the end of a word sounds like English sh in Portugal, so três is (TRESH). The same goes for seis (SAYSH) and dois (DOYSH).

🇵🇹 Portuguese phone numbers have nine digits and are usually read out in three groups of three. Mobile numbers start with 9, so a number beginning with nove is almost certainly a mobile.

💬 In Portugal, lhe "you, to you" is attached after the verb with a hyphen in ordinary statements. You'll hear the same thing in telefona-lhe "calls you".

💬 On its own, ainda usually means "still" or "yet". Paired with hoje "today", it means "before the day is over".

💬 Portuguese often uses the plain present for something that will happen soon. ela liga literally means "she calls" but here means "she'll call".

💬 Men say obrigado and women say obrigada. The ending matches the speaker, not the person being thanked.

💬 "Thanks for" uses por, which combines with "the": pela is por + a, and pelo is por + o. For example, obrigado pelo café "thanks for the coffee".

💬 obrigado matches the speaker, not the listener. Men say obrigado and women say obrigada.

🇵🇹 Besides squeezing past someone, com licença is a courteous way to close a call or leave an office.

💬 com licença actually means "excuse me". You'd say it when entering an office or interrupting someone, not as a goodbye.