Tá ou não tá?

Oi, gente! Today I'm focusing on something very simple, tá?
Brazilians say this "tá" all the time, in different contexts, but if you don't have a good dictionary or grammar, you can't find what it  means.
You're already familiar with the verb estar (if not, click here for more info). If we conjugate estar in "Presente do Indicativo, we have:

Eu estou

Tu estás

Você/Ele/Ela está

Nós estamos

Vocês estão

Eles/Elas estão.

Tá is a simplified and informal way for está. And it can happen every time verb estar is spoken (in any conjugation). This simplification was initially phonetic, but now, with text message, e-mails and informal writing, it's even more important to understand it.
This is how it works: remove the first syllable - es - and write the ending the way you would pronounce it:

Eu tô

Você tá*

Ele/Ela tá

Nós tamos

Vocês tão

Eles/Elas tão.

*because this is informal, tu is not likely to be conjugated this way, however, in some parts of the country you can hear/see tu tais or tu tá.

• Eu tô feliz. (estou - I'm happy)
• Eu tava na praia quando você ligou. (estava - I was at the beach when you called me)
• Ele tava em casa. (estava - He was at home)
• Se eu tivesse na escola, teria feito a prova. (estivesse - If I had been at school, I would have taken the test.)

We also use tá as a short way of saying está bem and it means OK, alright, I got it - either in a question or answer. And you may also hear ah, ta as "oh, now I understand", or if someone is being ironic "oh, really?", yeah, right.
If it's Internet language, some people may write without the accents: tah or ta.

• Me liga mais tarde, tá? ( Call me later, ok?)
• Faça os deveres antes de ver TV, tá? (Do your homework before watching TV, ok?)
• Ah, tá! Você tirou 10 na prova! (Oh, really? You aced the test?)
• Ah, tá, primeiro direita, depois esquerda. (Oh, I got it. First right, then left.)

Até a próxima!