At the Doctor in Brazil: the Portuguese You Need Before You Need It

There is one appointment almost every foreigner in Brazil puts off. It is not the doctor that worries you, it is the ten minutes before the doctor: the front desk, and then the question you get asked twice while a queue builds behind you. Here is the part nobody mentions. A medical visit in Brazil runs the same four beats, in the same order, and you can rehearse all four this week.

The sentence that buys you the visit

Most people try to hide how thin their Portuguese is. It is the wrong instinct in a clinic. Announced in the first ten seconds, it tells the receptionist what to do with you, and Brazilians are patient with someone trying in their language. Left unsaid, your silence gets read as confusion and the conversation speeds up instead of slowing down.

Some doctors in the larger private clinics speak good English. The front desk usually does not, and the desk is where the visit starts and where the paperwork gets decided. Plan for Portuguese at the counter and treat English in the room as a bonus.

The four beats of any visit

The shape below holds in a private clinic as much as in a public health post. Knowing which beat you are in tells you which fifteen words you need next.

Booking: marcar uma consulta

The chunk to learn whole is marcar uma consulta (to book an appointment). Marcar is the verb for putting something on a calendar, and consulta is the appointment itself. You will use both at the counter and in a WhatsApp message.

That second one is a gift for a learner. A large share of Brazilian clinics book by WhatsApp, so you can type your request and reread what comes back at your own speed. If the phone is what makes you hesitate, ask for the number and write instead.

Particular, convênio, or SUS

The desk will ask which one you are on inside the first sentence, so it pays to know the three words. The SUS is the public system, free at the point of care and open to anyone in the country. A plano de saúde, which people also call a convênio, is private insurance, most often held through an employer. Finally, particular means you pay the clinic directly for that visit.

In practice most people arriving from abroad start on one of the last two, at least in the first months, because a private consultation can usually be booked for a named hour in the same week. The question at the desk is simply which route you are on, and the answer is one word.

What comes back down the line

One thing to notice in your own lines: queria and gostaria de are the polite gear for any request in Portuguese. Eu quero uma consulta is a demand; eu queria uma consulta is the same request with the edges rounded off, and it is the register a clinic expects. That softener works at every counter you will stand at this year, and the wider set of first-weeks scripts is in our guide to the phrases that matter before you move to Brazil.

The reception desk

This is the beat that catches people, because it is fast and nobody prepares you for it. Four things get asked, usually in this order.

And the lines that get you through it.

The fields on the ficha

Then you sit down and wait for a name. Clinics call the full name, so if you go by a short version of yours, listen for the surname instead.

Saying what is wrong: the tô com pattern

Here is the piece of grammar that carries this entire article. English builds symptoms with have, so learners reach for ter and say eu tenho dor de cabeça. You will be understood. The sentence a Brazilian says is built on estar com, word for word “to be with” something.

The tô in all of these is the spoken form of estou, from the verb estar. Writing keeps the full estou com, and the clinic will hear tô com and think nothing of it. If the split between the two Portuguese verbs for “to be” is still fuzzy, our guide to ser vs estar settles it with one question.

The second workhorse: dói

Dói (DOY) means it hurts, and the body part is what does the hurting, so Portuguese puts the part where English puts the person. Minha cabeça tá doendo is my head hurts. In the room you mostly need the shortest version of all, said while pointing.

De or no: the rule for naming the pain

Dor (DOH, the final R landing as a light H or barely there) takes two different prepositions, and English speakers pick the wrong one for years. A short fixed set, the aches people have had names for forever, takes de. Everything else takes no or na, matching the gender of the body part.

Two footnotes on that table. O ouvido is the ear you hear with, the inside, while a orelha is the flap on the side of your head, so an earache is always dor de ouvido. And as costas is plural in Portuguese even though you have one back.

• Eu tenho dor na cabeça.

  Tô com dor de cabeça.

  Two fixes in one line. Brazilians build symptoms with estar com rather than ter, and headache is the fixed chunk dor DE cabeça. Dor na cabeça is understood, it just marks the sentence as translated.

• Eu sou doente.

  Eu tô doente.

  Ser doente describes a person with a chronic condition, as a permanent trait. Estar doente is what you are today, and it is what you mean at a clinic.

The questions the doctor will ask

A consultation is not an open conversation. It is a short, predictable set of questions, and the same handful opens almost every one. Recognizing them is worth more than any amount of vocabulary, because a question you catch is a question you can answer in four words.

Answers that hold up

What you hear during the exam

These arrive as instructions, said quickly. Learn them as sounds attached to actions.

The exit lines

The last two minutes decide what you walk out holding, and this is the moment to ask anything you have been sitting on. Você tem alguma dúvida? (any questions?) is your cue, and it is a real invitation.

At the farmácia

The farmácia (fah-MAH-see-ah) is the second half of the visit and, in most neighborhoods, it is on the next corner and open late. It is also not the self-service aisle many foreigners expect. Medication sits behind the counter and you get it by asking someone, which is the interaction this whole page has been preparing you for. Many branches also have a small room where a technician can check your blood pressure or give an injection your doctor prescribed.

Genérico, similar, referência

Ask for a generic and you will meet these three words. The referência is the original branded product. The genérico carries the molecule name on the box instead of a brand and is regulated as interchangeable with it. The similar sits between the two, sold under its own brand name. Staff commonly offer the generic as the cheaper option, so tem genérico? is an unremarkable question at any counter.

The word English speakers arrive without

Dipirona (gee-pee-ROH-nah) is a household painkiller and fever medicine in Brazil, sold without a prescription, and it will be offered to you sooner or later. Most English speakers have never heard the name, because it is not on pharmacy shelves in the US or the UK. Paracetamol and ibuprofeno are also there and easier to recognize.

Say plainly what you do and do not know, then let the professional decide. This is a language guide, so it stops at the words: what you should take, and whether a pharmacy is even the right stop, belongs to the pharmacist or the doctor in front of you. Eu nunca tomei isso (I have never taken this) is the sentence that opens that conversation.

One last counter habit. Chains run discount programs tied to the Brazilian tax number, so you will be asked Qual é o seu CPF? at the till. It is a loyalty question, not a legal one. If you do not have one yet, não tenho CPF ends it and you pay the shelf price.

If it is an emergency

Two words cover the places you would go. Pronto-socorro is the emergency room, and people shorten it to PS; socorro on its own is so-KOH-hoo, with that double R sounding like an H. A UPA is a public round-the-clock urgent care unit, the middle step between a clinic and a hospital.

Two numbers are worth having in your phone before you need them. SAMU is the ambulance service on 192. The fire brigade, on 193, also runs rescue and first response in much of the country. Both are free calls.

One honest expectation to set. Emergency rooms in Brazil sort patients by severity on arrival, a process called classificação de risco, so arriving first does not mean being seen first. If you are sent to wait, it usually means someone judged your case as not urgent, which is good news delivered in an uncomfortable way.

Rehearse it before you need it

Nobody learns this material well on the day they are ill. Take twenty minutes while you feel fine and say six lines out loud: the opener about your Portuguese, eu queria marcar uma consulta, tô com dor de ..., dói aqui, faz três dias, and your allergy line. Everything else here you can read off a screen at the counter. Those six you want in your mouth.

Then do the boring, high-value thing: type your own medical facts into your phone in Portuguese today. Your allergies, and anything you take daily. Showing a screen is a complete answer in any language.

If someone in your house is Brazilian, the temptation is to hand them the phone and let them do the talking. Let them make the booking if that gets you through the door, then take the consultation yourself, because the doctor is going to ask what you are feeling and nobody can answer that for you. The wider version of that argument, and what to learn first for a Brazilian family, is in our guide to learning Portuguese for your partner.

The visit you have been putting off is a script with four beats and about forty words. Learn the words while nothing hurts, and the appointment stops being the thing you dread and goes back to being an appointment.