What "respect for taste português" actually means in practice
The phrase has been circulating in translation and localization circles for a few years now. It refers to the idea that content meant for Portuguese speakers shouldn't just be mechanically translated, but should respect cultural nuances, register differences, and regional preferences. I've worked on projects where this distinction meant the difference between a document that felt natural and one that felt like it was written by someone who had never spoken to a Brazilian or European Portuguese speaker in their life. It is not a formal methodology with a single source of truth. Different teams use it to mean slightly different things. In my experience, the most useful working definition is: adapt your vocabulary, tone, and formatting choices to match what the target audience would actually read and accept as normal, rather than imposing a source-language sensibility onto the output.
Why respect for taste português matters more than you might think
Portuguese has two major standardized variants that differ significantly in vocabulary, verb conjugation preferences, and even punctuation habits. Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are mutually intelligible, but the gap is real. A marketing email that sounds friendly in Lisbon can read as stiff or even mildly offensive in São Paulo. The reverse is equally true. I learned this the hard way on a project for a mid-sized e-commerce company. Their product descriptions used a casual, direct tone that worked fine in Brazil. When we adapted them for Portugal, we kept the same register and structure but swapped a few terms. The feedback from the Lisbon team was blunt: the text felt like it was written by someone mocking a Brazilian telenovela character. We had to rewrite the entire batch, not just translate words, and it took an extra three days.
How to actually implement it on your projects
Start by deciding which variant you are targeting. This is not optional. If your audience spans both regions, pick one as primary and note where deviations are necessary. I usually recommend picking the variant with the larger market if the content is commercial, but that decision should come from the client, not from you guessing. Next, build or consult a glossary that distinguishes between variants. Common traps include:
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- Computer terminology: "mouse" in Brazil versus "rato" in Portugal. "Cell phone" versus "telemóvel". These are small choices but they accumulate quickly.
- Verb forms: Brazilian Portuguese prefers the gerund in many contexts where European Portuguese uses the infinitive. "Estou fazendo" versus "Estou a fazer". Neither is wrong. They are just different registries.
- Formality levels: European Portuguese tends toward slightly more formal address in business communication. Brazilian Portuguese accepts informal second-person pronouns in a broader range of professional contexts.
When you adapt content, read it aloud. This sounds obvious but it catches a lot of problems that silent reading misses. If a sentence makes you pause or stumble, it is probably carrying a structural imprint from the source language. Shorten it. Rearrange it. Write it the way a native would say it on a Tuesday afternoon, not the way a textbook teaches you to write it.
Where this approach breaks down
Respect for taste português does not solve every localization problem. Legal documents, technical manuals, and scientific papers often require a consistency that regional taste preferences cannot override. In those cases, sticking to a single variant and flagging terms for the client's legal or compliance team is the safer move. Trying to please both variants simultaneously in a contract results in something neither side finds comfortable. Another limitation: this method assumes you have access to native speakers who can review the output. Without that, you are guessing. I have seen teams run "respect for taste português" checks using only automated tools, and the results were worse than a straight machine translation. The approach requires human judgment, not a script.
If you are working with content that targets Portuguese speakers but you do not have a reviewer on hand, consider pairing this approach with a simpler strategy: pick the variant with the largest audience, apply a consistent internal style guide, and budget for at least one round of native review before delivery. That combination will usually catch the issues that matter most without requiring a full localization team. The core principle remains straightforward. Write in Portuguese as if the reader is a real person, not a placeholder. Choose variants deliberately. Flag ambiguities. And do not assume that a word-for-word swap is ever enough.
