Have you ever scrolled through Portuguese social media or glanced at a Portuguese friend’s phone and wondered if you’d accidentally stumbled into some kind of cryptographic puzzle? “Hj,” “mt,” “fds”… What do those mean? Well, they are common abbreviations, remnants of a bygone era, and understanding them might eventually help you to decipher what your Portuguese coworker or friend just wrote on their text message.
But before we explain why they exist and show you a list, let’s put your current skills to the test. Here are three messages to decode:
💬 Hj n tou mt bem
💬 Tmb n tou com paciencia
💬 Queres ir cmg ver um filme este fds?
(You can find the answers at the end of this post.)
A Brief History Lesson
These particular abbreviations weren’t born from laziness, but rather from necessity. During the 90s and 00s, back when SMS messages cost money and imposed a strict 160-character limit, Portuguese people (like texters worldwide) had to get creative. The solution was to strip away vowels, compress words, and convey maximum meaning with minimum characters.
As mobile plans evolved to include more generous SMS allowances (and eventually unlimited texting), and smartphones arrived with autocorrect and predictive text, as well as free messaging apps, the original rationale for these shortcuts gradually faded. Typing “quando” with autocorrect became easier than remembering to type “qd.”
Yet, for a lot of people, these abbreviations stuck. While younger users who grew up with smartphones might type everything out in full, many people still default to the abbreviated forms they learned years ago. These shortcuts have become linguistic muscle memory.
The Essential Abbreviations
Here are the most common Portuguese text abbreviations still in circulation:
- hj = hojetoday
- tou = estouI am
- n = nãoNo
- pq = porquebecause / porquê?Why?
- mt = muitovery, a lot, much
- bjs/bjos = beijosKisses
- tbm/tb = tambémalso, too, as well
- cmg = comigowith me
- ctg = contigowith you (sing.,inf.)
- fds =fim de semanaweekend
A word of caution about that last one: fds also happens to be an abbreviation for one of Portuguese’s most popular swear words. Context is everything 😁
Answers:
- Hj n tou mt bem = Hoje não estou muito bem = I’m not feeling very well today
- Tbm n tou com paciencia = Também não estou com paciência = I don’t have the patience either
- Queres ir cmg ver um filme este fds? = Queres ir comigo ver um filme este fim de semana? = Do you want to go see a movie with me this weekend?