I’ll never forget the first time I chatted online with a Brazilian girl.
It was only a few days after I had arrived in Brazil, and my Portuguese was a mediocre Portuñol at best. Nevertheless, it was enough for me to fumble my way through conversations and win the favor of a cute girl.
We met at a party through mutual friends and added each other on Facebook so that we could stay in contact. Later on we got to chatting, and that’s when things got interesting.
We started out with polite greetings,
“oi, tudo bem?”
“tudo bom, e você?”
Then some small talk.
“A festa foi muito bom.”
The party was good, but my ability to make interesting small chat still had a long way to go.
“Você lembrou a festa? Nossa, nunca vi alguém beber tanto whiskey na minha vida kkk.”
Now, I had a hard time understanding all of that, but the one thing that I got from this story was that she was a lifetime member of the KKK.
I was shocked to say the least. I didn’t think that they had the KKK in Brazil. She was such a nice girl too! What a shame that she is a racist. And since racism is illegal in Brazil, I didn’t want to have anything to do with her, so I told her goodbye.
“O BOPE está aqui, eu tenho que ir.”
“tchau, bj.”
Wait, did she just say she wants to give me a blowjob? Maybe a girl who is in the KKK is into bad boys who get their doors knocked down by the Brazilian SWAT? I’d heard that Brazilians are more direct, but I wasn’t expecting it like this.
I told my roommate that the girl I met was really into me and she wanted to give me a bj. I showed him the conversation and he almost broke my eardrums with “huahuahuahuahuahua.”
After he recovered from his bout of laughter he explained to me that Brazilians have different acronyms when chatting online. It turns out that what I thought was racism and sexual forwardness were actually laughter and a cute way of saying goodbye.
I felt like an idiot, so I went in search of other common acronyms that Brazilians use online.
In the interest of preventing future misunderstandings I now present to you my list of Brazilian acronyms.
Dictionary of Brazilian Portuguese Internet Slang
- 9dade (novidade) – news
- add – To add someone in a contact list. They might say something like “me add pf”
- aew (aí) – There.
- aff – An interjection used to display shock, either positive or negative. Derived from Ave-Maria, another Brazilian expression.
- aki (aqui) – Here
- blz (beleza) – Alright
- bj or bjo (beijo) – Kiss
- bjoks (beijocas) – Little kisses
- bjs or bjos (beijos) – Kisses
- cê (você) – you
- cmg (comigo) – With me
- ctg (contigo) – With you
- d (de) – Of, from
- D+ (demais) – A lot.
- eh (é) – An easier way of typing é. (He is; She is; It is; That’s right)
- etm (eu te amo) – I love you
- ets (eu tenho saudades) – I miss you
- FDP (filho da puta) – Son of a bitch
- FDS (fim de semana) – Weekend
- flw (falou) – Bye, peace out!
- gnt (gente) – Person; People
- hj (hoje) – Today
- hum – The equivalent of saying umm
- kct (cacete) – Literally translates as penis, but is often shouted in surprise. Can be used online as WTF.
- kkk – The equivalent of lol
- k (o quê) – What
- kbça (cabeça) – Head
- kra (cara) – Dude
- kd or cd (cadê) – Where, as in “cadê você?”
- ki (o quê) – What
- n or ñ (não) – No
- namo (namorado; namorada) – Boyfriend; Girlfriend
- naum (não) – No
- nd (nada) – Nothing
- neh (né) – Isn’t it?
- ngm (ninguém) – Nobody
- oq (o quê) – What
- p (para) – To; For (learn the difference between por and para here)
- po (porra) – I don’t want to have to be the one to explain this one to you, not here anyway.
- pf (por favor) – Please
- pqp (puta que pariu) – A rough translation would be “holy fucking shit.”
- putz – another expression used in shock
- q (que) – That
- q (o quê) – What?
- qdo or qnd (quando) – When
- qq (qualquer) – Any
- rs (risos) – Laughs. similar to lol
- soh (só) – Only.
- sqn (só que não) – This is the Brazilian equivalent of teenage girls saying, “except not.”
- t+ (até mais) – See you later
- ta (está) – This can either be used to shorten está, or it can be used to say, ok. Check out my video on “ah ta”
- tamo or tamos (estamos) – A shortened form of estamos
- tb or tbm (também) – Also, as well
- tc (teclar) – To chat
- td (tudo) – All, everything
- TDB (tudo de bom) – Take care
- tipo (tipo) – Like. Can be used as umm as well. It’s like, what you, like, say like, when you like don’t know what to say.
- to (estou) – A shortened version of I am. Also used in spoken Portuguese.
- uau – wow!
- vcs (vocês) – You (plural)
- vc (você) – You
- vlw (valeu) – Thanks, it was worth it. See my video on valeu.
- zapzap – What the cool kids call Whatsapp
