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Verbs

Please note that this is only a brief introduction to my Portuguese Grammar book, which is illustrated and much more complete and detailed than the website.

My Portuguese Grammar book covers all the essential aspects of Portuguese verbs. It is divided into four chapters. The first chapter presents an introduction to Portuguese verbs; the second chapter presents Portuguese tenses in more detail; the third chapter presents tables of regular and irregular verbs conjugated in all tenses and the fourth chapter presents a list of approximately 850 Portuguese verbs, sorted into groups according to their special characteristics.

If you are learning Portuguese as a second language and need a complete, concise and practical reference, you can order my Portuguese Grammar book, which is ideal if used in conjunction with my Portuguese Course because it complements it.

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1. Introduction

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A verb is an action or a doing word in a sentence. It is the most important word in a sentence that must always be present to complete an idea.

In Portuguese, the endings of verbs are more varied and there are more tenses available than in English. Therefore, Portuguese verbs are much more complicated than English verbs.

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2. Conjugation

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There are three conjugations, that is, three main verb groups in Portuguese.

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Remark: 

• It is very important to distinguish the ending of a verb because all regular verbs with the same ending follow the same pattern.
• Verbs ending in -ar are the most common ones.
• There are also verbs ending in -or like por (to put), compor (to compose), supor (suppose), etc., but these verbs are irregular. 

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3. Mood

In Portuguese, the verbs are divided into three moods.

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Remark: 

• The subjunctive is used after certain verbs, expressions, conjunctions and adverbs. The subjunctive is difficult to understand because it is used differently in English and it doesn’t correspond exactly in tense to the Portuguese tense.

• The study of the subjunctive is for intermediate and advanced students, but you can easily communicate in Portuguese without it in the early stage.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Tenses) in the Portuguese Grammar book which explains in detail and gives all the rules for using the subjunctive and the other tenses available and used in Portuguese.

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4. Tenses

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In Portuguese, a tense can be called simple tense or compound tense. A simple tense consists of only one verb, that is, the main verb while a compound tense consists of two verbs, that is, an auxiliary verb and the main verb.
The main auxiliary verbs used in Portuguese to form compound tenses are estar (to be, used to form continuous tenses); ir (to go, used to form the future tense); ter (to have, used to form perfect tenses) and ser (to be, used to form the passive voice). 

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5. Regular Verbs

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Regular verbs have a invariable radical (falar - to speak) and are easy to memorize. Each conjugation follows a different, but regular pattern.

Below you will find an example of regular verbs conjugated in all tenses available and used in Portuguese. 

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5.1. Indicative Simple Tenses

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Remark:

• The simple present is the tense with the most irregular verbs in Portuguese. 
• The simple past is the most frequently used past tense in Portuguese.
• The past perfect tense (simple form) is rarely used nowadays, even in the written form.
• There are two ways (simple and compound form) to express the simple future in Portuguese. The compound form (ir + infinitive) is more frequently used than the simple form. 
• The conditional is also a tense in Portuguese.

Example:

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5.2. Indicative Continuous Tenses

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Remark: 

• In Portuguese, all verbs, with the exception of the verb estar (to be), can be used to form the continuous tenses (progressive form).
• The Portuguese -ndo form corresponds to the English -ing form.
• To form the -ndo form, just drop the r from the infinitive form and add -ndo. Example: falar > fala > falando (to speak > speaking)

Example:

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5.3. Indicative Compound (Perfect) Tenses

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Remark: 

• The past perfect compound tense is preferred to the past perfect simple tense.
• The future perfect, normally seen in the written form, is rarely used.

Example:

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5.4. Subjunctive Simple Tenses

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Example:

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5.5. Subjunctive Continuous Tenses

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Example:

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5.6. Subjunctive Compound Tenses

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Example:

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5.7. Imperative (command)

Remark:

• In Brazil, there are two singular forms for expressing the command. The first one (fala) is widely used in the spoken and the second one (fale) in the written language.
• There is one more form (falemos/bebamos/assistamos) which refers to the subject pronoun nós (we), but it is rarely used. There is no need to learn it except for Vamos (Let's go).

Example:

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5.8. Personal Infinitive

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Remark:  

• The personal infinitive is a feature available only in the Portuguese language.
• The personal infinitive is easy to confuse with the future subjunctive because the regular verbs have the same form in both tenses, but the rules for using the personal infinitive and the future subjunctive are completely different.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Tenses) in the Portuguese Grammar book which explains in detail and give all the rules for using the personal infinitive and the other tenses available and used in Portuguese. 

Example:

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5.9. Participles

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Remark: 

• The present participle, called gerund in Portuguese, is usually used to form the continuous tenses and with a few verbs. It is not used after prepositions and it does not have a noun or an adjective function as in English.

• The past participle can be regular or irregular as in English. In fact, there are only a few frequently used verbs which have irregular past participles. 

• In Portuguese, there are a few verbs which have two past participles, a regular and an irregular one. The regular form (invariable) is used to form compound (perfect) tenses (ter + past participle) while the irregular form (variable in gender and in number) is mainly used to form the passive voice. 

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6. Irregular Verbs

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Irregular verbs which have a variable radical (fazer > faço, to do > I do), minor spelling changes (dormir > durmo, to sleep > I sleep) and sometimes even a completely different form (ir > vou, to go > I go), are more difficult and need more time to be memorized. 

Irregular verbs can be very hard, especially for beginners, but do not worry about this. With time and some practice they come naturally.

Below you will find an example of an irregular verb conjugated in all tenses available and used in Portuguese.

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Remark:

• In Portuguese, a verb can be regular in one tense, but irregular in another. Verb ter (to have), for example, is irregular in the present and past tenses, but regular in the future, continuous, conditional and compound perfect) tenses. See the table below.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Verbs) in the Portuguese Grammar book which presents tables of regular and irregular verbs, conjugated in all tenses available and used in Portuguese.

6.1. Indicative

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Example:

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6.2. Subjunctive

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Example:

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Remark: Remember that the subjunctive is used differently in English and it doesn’t correspond exactly in tense to the Portuguese tense.

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6.3. Imperative and Personal Infinitive

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Remark: Remember that the personal infinitive is a feature available only in the Portuguese language and it does not have a corresponding form in English.

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Example:

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7. Active and Passive Voice

A verb can be used in the active or in the passive voice. In the active voice the subject does the action while in the passive voice the subject has the action done to it.

The passive voice can be used in all tenses. The verb ser (to be) is used to form the passive voice along with the past participle of the main verb.

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Be aware that in Portuguese in the passive voice not only the verb to be must be in agreement with the object, but also the past participle of the main verb must also be in agreement with the object.

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Remark:

• The passive voice is followed by the preposition por (by), which can vary pelo(s)/pela(s) as it must agree with the subject it refers to. However, this preposition is usually omitted if it is not important to know by whom the action was done.

• There are a few verbs like entregar (to deliver) for example, which have two past participles (entregado/entregue - delivered), a regular one and an irregular one. The irregular one (entregue) is used with the passive voice and the regular one (entregado) with the active voice.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Tenses) in the Portuguese Grammar book which explains in more detail the use of the passive voice.

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