The words the textbooks leave out
Slang tells people where you have been. Not just how good your Portuguese is, but which Portuguese you learned, roughly how old you are, and whether you have spent any time here.
Several of these came out of the colonial wars and the return from Angola and Mozambique in the seventies, which is worth knowing before you use them. Ten you will hear in the first week.
1. Fixe
If you take one word from this list, take this one. Something between "cool", "great" and "fine". Say it like the English "fish" with a sharper vowel.
Probably from English "fixed", in the sense of sorted or settled. Everyone uses it, children through grandmothers, and reaching for the Brazilian legal instead is one of the quickest ways to announce where you studied.
Usage: "O filme foi bué fixe!" (The film was really good.)
2. Bué
From Kimbundu mbuê, meaning much or many. It reached the mainland with the retornados, the Portuguese who came back from Angola and Mozambique after 1975, and it has been ordinary Portuguese ever since.
It does the job of muito in informal speech. Started young and urban, now heard well beyond that.
Usage: "Estou bué cansado." (I'm shattered.)
3. Giro / Gira
Where the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world says bonito or lindo, Portugal says giro. Cute, pretty, good-looking, and also "interesting" when applied to an idea rather than a person.
The literal meaning is a turn or a lap, which gets you nowhere useful. Take it as its own word.
Usage: "Aquela rapariga é bué gira." (That girl is very pretty.)
4. Está-se bem
Literally "it is well itself", which helps nobody. In practice: it's fine, sure, don't worry about it.
Listen for the short version, because that is what you will actually hear. It collapses to "tá-se", and if you are waiting for four syllables you will miss the whole exchange.
Usage: "Queres ir ao cinema?" "Está-se bem."
5. Pá
The national filler. Shortened from rapaz, boy, though it lost any sense of gender or age long ago and gets used to men, women and the weather alike.