Tô chegando in Portuguese

We all have a specific vocabulary stack for setting up and managing our time. Scheduling our lives is a top priority, right?

In Portuguese, it's no different. They have a core of really common verbs & vocab that they use again and again. But there are a few tricks to staying within the standards.

Encontros e Desencontros: ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY

os verbos:
- atrasar = to delay
- chegar = to arrive
- encontrar = to meet
- combinar = to agree (set up)
- marcar (desmarcar) = to set (a date)

outros:
- horário = hour
- na hora = on time
- encontro = meeting
- em ponto = sharp
- com antecedência = in advance

Let's build some sentence using these. First, setting up a meeting - an encontro. Brazilians always use either MARCAR or COMBINAR. Rarely someone will use AGENDAR (to schedule) but that's easy to understand, right?

Always MARCAR or COMBINAR an event. Brazilian will often shorten things and say simply, "Vamos marcar uma praia" for example. In this case the proper sentence would be something like, "Vamos marcar um horário para nos encontrarmos na praia". You can see why they shorten this, right? 😉

When you're navigating the actual arrival - sometimes a bit challenging with Brazilians - you will say "Eu estou chegando" (I'm arriving). *Depending on who you're meeting with this can either mean literally that they are getting close, or it can mean that they're nowhere near arriving.

*commonly spoken as "tô chegando"

Followed by,

A woman would say "Eu vou chegar atrasada". Always, always use ATRASAR to express delay and lateness.

In a more formal situation you can discourage lateness by emphasizing punctuality. Like this:

Rescheduling is usually a 2-step process: (1) unscheduling; (2) rescheduling.