We habitually respond with "okay" when we understand something. We hadn't tried to change this until recently because "okay" also exists in Brazilian Portuguese. Importantly, o que and que also exit and sound just like "okay" but can mean "what" or "huh" which is opposite of what we want to say. We frequently experience various forms of the the following conversation.
them: "I will check on that"
us: "what?
them: "I will find an answer for your question"
us: "huh?"
them (in English): "where are you from?"
us: 😒
I'm happy to report that at least one of us has broken this habit. During a recent medical appointment, a tech was talking about the things that were going to happen. After each item, Carol responded with 'tá which is short for está and means "it is." This sounds goofy af in English but it works like a charm here. Now that "okay" is broken it should be easy enough to get into the habbit of "tá."
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