In short

The little words for “the” and “a” (o, a, os, as and um, uma, uns, umas) must agree in gender and number with their noun, so they lean directly on noun gender and number. The twist that has no English equivalent: when the prepositions de, em, a and por meet an article, they fuse into a single word - de + o -> do, em + a -> na, a + a -> à. These contractions are not optional shortcuts; the separate spelling “de o” simply does not exist, so learn the fused forms as the real words.

The rule

The two articles

The definite article (English “the”) has four forms; the indefinite (English “a / an”, plural “some”) has four too. Pick the one that matches the noun’s gender and number:

• o livro, a casa, os livros, as casas - “the”.
• um livro, uma casa, uns livros, umas casas - “a book, a house, some books, some houses”.

European Portuguese uses the definite article in several places where English drops it. It appears before whole classes and abstract nouns (O café faz mal - “Coffee is bad for you”; Adoro a música - “I love music”), before most country names (a França, o Brasil, os Estados Unidos - but bare Portugal, Angola, Moçambique), and, very typically, before people’s first names in everyday speech (A Joana chegou - “Joana has arrived”). It is also kept before possessives (o meu carro - “my car”), a point you meet fully in Lesson 4.

The indefinite article is dropped before an unmodified profession or nationality after ser: Sou professor, Ela é portuguesa. Add it back only when there is a describing word: Ela é uma médica excelente.

Contractions with the definite article

This is the heart of the lesson. Four prepositions must contract with o, a, os, as:

• de (of / from) -> do, da, dos, das
• em (in / on / at) -> no, na, nos, nas
• a (to / at) -> ao, à, aos, às
• por (by / through / for) -> pelo, pela, pelos, pelas

So “the man’s book” is o livro do homem, “in the city” is na cidade, “to the cinema” is ao cinema, and “along the street” is pela rua. Writing de o, em a, a o or por a is always wrong.

The à contraction (a + a)

When the preposition a meets the feminine article a, the two merge and the fusion is written with a grave accent: a + a -> à, a + as -> às. The accent is the visible sign that two a’s have become one; it is obligatory, not decorative:

• Vou à praia - “I am going to the beach” (a + a praia).
• Chegámos às oito - “We arrived at eight” (a + as horas).

Contrast Vou a Lisboa - cities usually take no article, so there is no second a to swallow and no accent. The masculine equivalent is simply ao (Vou ao Porto).

Contractions with the indefinite article

em also contracts, obligatorily, with um / uma:

• em -> num, numa, nuns, numas: Moro numa aldeia - “I live in a village”.

de may contract with um / uma (dum, duma), and both de um and dum are accepted in Portugal. The prepositions a and por do not contract with the indefinite article: a um amigo, por uma razão.

Contractions with demonstratives

The same three prepositions de, em and a fuse with the demonstratives (este, esse, aquele; the neuters isto, isso, aquilo), which you study in full in Lesson 4:

• de: deste, desse, daquele; disto, disso, daquilo.
• em: neste, nesse, naquele; nisto, nisso, naquilo.
• a: only the aquele-series contracts, taking the grave accent: àquele, àquela, àquilo. After a, the near forms stay open: a este, a esse.

Forms & patterns

Definite and indefinite articles:

Preposition + definite article (all obligatory):

Preposition + indefinite article and demonstratives:

Examples

Common mistakes

• de o professor -> do professor - de, em, a and por always fuse with the article; “de o”, “em a”, “a o” never appear.
• Vou a a praia -> Vou à praia - the two a’s merge into à, and the grave accent is obligatory.
• em uma casa -> numa casa - em always contracts with um / uma (num, numa); the split form sounds heavy in EP.
• a aquele homem -> àquele homem - only the aquele-series contracts after a, and it carries the grave accent (àquele, àquela, àquilo).
• o livro de o meu pai -> o livro do meu pai - the article stays and still contracts even before a possessive: de + o -> do.
• Falei co o Pedro -> Falei com o Pedro - com, para and sem do NOT contract with the article; do not overapply the rule.
• Vou à Lisboa -> Vou a Lisboa - cities take no article, so there is no second a and no accent; à appears only when a real feminine article is present.

Tips

• Drill the four obligatory rows as one block: de -> do/da/dos/das, em -> no/na/nos/nas, a -> ao/à/aos/às, por -> pelo/pela/pelos/pelas. Treat “de o” as a spelling that does not exist.
• Hear à as a slightly longer, more open “a” than plain a; that stretched vowel (recall the reduced vowels from the reading & pronunciation guide) is your ear’s cue that a preposition has swallowed an article.
• After de, em or a, always contract a following demonstrative: deste, nesse, àquele. Remember that a fuses only with the aquele-series.
• Only de, em, a and por contract; com, para, sem, sobre and entre stay separate before the article.
• The name “crase” for the a + a -> à fusion is Brazilian school metalanguage; in Portugal you simply hear “a com acento grave” - the rule is identical, only the label differs.
• In Brazil: num / numa are used the same way, but de um is preferred over dum, and dropping the article before first names (Falei com Joana, not com a Joana) is common.

In short

Portuguese has subject pronouns - eu, tu, ele… - but it usually leaves them out, because the verb ending already tells you who is acting: Falo português means “I speak Portuguese” with no word for “I”. Master that habit first (it is the single biggest shift for an English speaker), then the second job of this lesson: European Portuguese has several ways to say “you”, and choosing the right one is a matter of politeness, not grammar. Tu for people you are close to, the respectful o senhor / a senhora, and a very European move - addressing someone in the third person by name or title - all live here.

The rule

The subject pronouns

Here is the full set, with the verb-person each one commands (you will conjugate the verbs themselves from Lesson 6 on - for now, notice only which “slot” each pronoun fills):

Every pronoun for “you” except tu takes a third-person verb - the same form as ele / ela. That is central: você fala, o senhor fala and ele fala all use the identical verb.

The null subject (drop the pronoun)

Because the verb ending is different for each person, Portuguese normally omits the subject pronoun. This is called the sujeito nulo. Say:

• Falo inglês. (I speak English.) - not Eu falo.
• És muito simpático. (You are very nice.) - not Tu és.
• Moramos em Lisboa. (We live in Lisbon.) - not Nós moramos.

Put the pronoun back only when you actually need it:

• for contrast: Eu trabalho, mas ele estuda (I work, but he studies);
• for emphasis: Fui eu (It was me);
• for clarity, when the verb form alone is ambiguous - above all the 3rd person, where você, ele and ela share one ending: Ela é médica vs Ele é médico.

English forces a subject onto every verb; Portuguese treats a bare pronoun-plus-verb (eu falo, eu como, eu vou) as heavy and slightly foreign.

Ways to say “you” (formas de tratamento)

This is where European Portuguese differs most from the textbook “you = você” shortcut:

• tu - informal singular, for friends, family, children, classmates, anyone you are on close terms with. It takes the 2nd-person singular verb (the -s ending): tu falas, tu tens. In Portugal tu is alive and normal, not slangy.
• você - a neutral-to-polite singular “you” that takes the 3rd-person verb (você fala). Handle it with care in EP: to some ears it can sound distant or even curt, so Portuguese speakers often avoid the word and let the verb plus a name or title carry the address.
• o senhor / a senhora - the respectful, formal “you”, also with a 3rd-person verb: O senhor tem troco? (Do you have change, sir?).
• third-person address by name or title - a hallmark of EP courtesy: instead of any pronoun, you name the person and use a 3rd-person verb. A Ana quer um café? (Does Ana - meaning you, Ana - want a coffee?), O doutor precisa de ajuda?.

In the plural, the choice narrows: vocês covers informal and neutral “you all” (3rd-person plural verb), and os senhores / as senhoras is the formal plural.

nós, a gente, and the vanished vós

“We” is nós (nós falamos, or just falamos). In everyday speech Portuguese also says a gente for “we” - but a gente takes a 3rd-person singular verb, like a collective noun: a gente vai means “we are going”. The old 2nd-person plural vós survives only in the north of Portugal, in prayer and in set phrases; for “you all” use vocês.

Forms & patterns

The pronouns and the verb-person they govern:

Choosing how to address someone (European norm):

Examples

Common mistakes

• Eu falo, eu como, eu vou -> Falo, como, vou - drop the pronoun; the verb ending already carries “I”, and repeating eu sounds foreign.
• Using você the way Brazilian Portuguese does, as the default “you” -> in EP prefer tu with people you are close to, and o senhor / a senhora or third-person address otherwise; a bare você can sound cold.
• tu fala -> tu falas - tu demands the 2nd-person singular verb (the -s ending); pairing tu with a 3rd-person verb is a Brazilianism, not EP standard.
• o senhor tens -> o senhor tem - você and o senhor / a senhora take the 3rd-person verb, never the tu form.
• a gente somos -> a gente é (or a gente está) - a gente means “we” but agrees in the 3rd-person singular.
• Ele está a chover -> Está a chover - there is no “it” subject for weather or time; just drop it (É tarde, “It is late”).

Tips

• Make dropping the subject your default. Add a pronoun only for contrast (eu… mas ele…), for emphasis (fui eu), or to separate você / ele / ela, which share one verb form.
• In Portugal, tu is the ordinary informal “you” - use it freely with friends, family and children; it is not disrespectful or childish.
• The safest polite move in EP is to address people in the 3rd person by name or title (A Ana quer…?, O doutor precisa…?) rather than reaching for você.
• Learn a gente early - it is everywhere in speech for “we” - but keep its verb singular: a gente vai, a gente tem.
• In Brazil: você is the everyday informal “you” (with a 3rd-person verb) and tu has largely faded or, where used, often takes a 3rd-person verb too; a gente very commonly replaces nós. So Brazilian leans on você / a gente exactly where European Portuguese leans on tu / nós and third-person address.

In short

This lesson gives you the words that point - este, esse, aquele (“this / that”) - and the words that own - meu, teu, seu (“my, your, his”). Both sets behave like the articles from Lesson 2: they agree in gender and number with the noun they attach to, not with you or with the owner. Portuguese also splits “this / that” three ways, not two, and each step matches a place adverb: este … aqui (near me), esse … aí (near you), aquele … ali (away from us both). Get that three-way map and the agreement habit, and you can point at anything and say whose it is.

The rule

Demonstratives: a three-way system

English has two degrees, this and that. European Portuguese has three, keyed to the three people in a conversation:

• este - near the speaker (“this, here by me”).
• esse - near the listener (“that, there by you”).
• aquele - away from both (“that one over there”).

Each of these is a variable word: it takes four forms to agree with the noun (masculine/feminine, singular/plural), exactly like o / a / os / as. So este livro, esta casa, estes livros, estas casas.

Alongside the variable forms there are three invariable neuter demonstratives - isto, isso, aquilo - used when there is no noun to agree with: an unidentified object, a whole situation, or an idea. O que é isto? (“What is this?”), Isso é verdade (“That’s true”). The neuter form never sits in front of a noun: you say este livro, never isto livro.

Demonstratives contract with de, em and a

Recall the contractions from Lesson 2. The prepositions de, em and a fuse with the demonstratives, and this is obligatory:

• de: deste, desse, daquele; neuters disto, disso, daquilo.
• em: neste, nesse, naquele; neuters nisto, nisso, naquilo.
• a: only the aquele-series contracts, taking the grave accent described in the reading & pronunciation guide: àquele, àquela, àquilo (the near forms stay open - a este, a esse).

So “I like this one” is Gosto deste, and “in that city” is nessa cidade.

Possessives agree with the thing owned

A possessive answers “whose?” - meu (my), teu (your, matching tu), seu (your/his/her, matching você / ele / ela), nosso (our), vosso (your, plural). The rule that trips every English speaker:

A possessive agrees with what is owned, never with the owner.

Casa is feminine, so “my house” is a minha casa - feminine - whoever the “I” is. Carro is masculine, so “my car” is o meu carro. English “my” never changes; Portuguese meu / minha / meus / minhas changes to match the noun.

Second habit: European Portuguese keeps the definite article in front of the possessive. Say o meu carro, a minha casa, os teus amigos - not bare meu carro. Drop the article only in a few set cases (direct address - Meu Deus! - and often with close family after ser: Ele é meu irmão).

The seu problem, and dele / dela

Because seu serves você, ele and ela at once, o seu carro can mean “your car”, “his car” or “her car” - genuinely ambiguous. European Portuguese resolves it by putting the owner after the noun with a de + pronoun phrase: de + ele -> dele, de + ela -> dela, de + eles -> deles, de + elas -> delas.

• o carro dele = his car
• o carro dela = her car
• a casa deles = their (masc./mixed) house

In practice EP reserves seu / sua for “your” (the você / o senhor address) and uses dele / dela / deles / delas for “his / her / their”. These forms are invariable in themselves - dele stays dele whatever it owns - because they agree with the owner’s gender, not the noun’s.

Place adverbs match the demonstratives

The three demonstrative degrees line up with a set of place adverbs:

• aqui / cá - here, by me (goes with este).
• aí - there, by you (goes with esse).
• ali / lá - (over) there, away from us (goes with aquele).

Cá and lá lean towards movement and the general direction (“come here”, “I’m going over there”): Anda cá!, Vou lá amanhã. Aqui and ali point at a more precise spot. Use them to reinforce a demonstrative: este livro aqui, aquela casa ali.

Forms & patterns

Variable demonstratives, neuters, and their place adverb:

Demonstrative contractions:

Possessives (agree with the noun owned):

Owner-marking with de + pronoun (invariable; used mainly for his / her / their):

Examples

Common mistakes

• o meu casa -> a minha casa - the possessive agrees with the noun, and casa is feminine; the owner (“I”) is irrelevant.
• meu carro -> o meu carro - European Portuguese keeps the article before the possessive; the bare form sounds Brazilian.
• isto livro -> este livro - the neuter isto / isso / aquilo stands alone; in front of a noun you need the variable este / esse / aquele.
• Using seu for “his / her” and hoping it is clear -> in EP say o carro dele / dela; keep seu / sua for “your” (você).
• Collapsing three degrees into two - esse for everything -> keep este (by me), esse (by you) and aquele (away) distinct; EP hears the difference.
• de este, em esse, a aquele -> deste, nesse, àquele - the contractions from Lesson 2 are obligatory on demonstratives too.
• o carro delo -> o carro dele - the form is de + ele = dele (and de + ela = dela); there is no delo.

Tips

• Anchor the three degrees to the three people talking: este = my zone (aqui), esse = your zone (aí), aquele = out there (ali / lá). Point as you say them and the system sticks.
• Whenever you reach for a possessive, first find the noun’s gender, then pick the ending: casa -> minha, carro -> meu. Owner never enters the calculation.
• Default to dele / dela / deles / delas for “his / her / their”. It is unambiguous and it is what Portuguese speakers actually use to avoid the seu fog.
• Fuse automatically: after de, em or a, a following demonstrative contracts - deste, nesse, àquele, disto. Treat the open spellings as non-existent.
• In Brazil: the article before the possessive is optional and often dropped (meu carro), seu / sua is used freely for “your / his / her”, and the este / esse contrast is weakened - many speakers use esse for “this” too, leaning on aqui / aí to mark distance instead.
• In Brazil: isto / isso / aquilo survive, but isso tends to absorb the job of isto in speech, mirroring the este / esse merger.

In short

A Portuguese adjective must agree with its noun in gender and number, so it changes shape the way nouns did in noun gender and number: um carro branco, uma casa branca, uns carros brancos, umas casas brancas. It also usually sits after the noun, the opposite of English - a red apple is uma maçã vermelha. A small group of common adjectives can move in front, and a handful actually change meaning depending on which side they land.

The rule

Agreement in gender and number

The adjective copies the gender and number of the noun it describes. How many forms it has depends on its ending:

• Adjectives in -o have all four forms: alto, alta, altos, altas.
• Adjectives in -e or in most consonants do not change for gender - only for number: grande / grandes, feliz / felizes, azul / azuis. So um homem inteligente and uma mulher inteligente share one form.
• Adjectives in -or usually add -a for the feminine: trabalhador / trabalhadora, falador / faladora.
• Nationality adjectives ending in a consonant DO inflect: português / portuguesa, inglês / inglesa, espanhol / espanhola. Note that nationalities and languages are written lower-case: ela é francesa, falo português.

Plurals follow the same rules as nouns (see noun gender and number): add -s after a vowel (bonito -> bonitos), -es after -r or -z (maior -> maiores, feliz -> felizes), -is for words in -l (azul -> azuis, fácil -> fáceis), and the -ão group behaves like nouns (alemão -> alemães).

Agreement with more than one noun

When one adjective describes two or more nouns, it goes plural, and if the nouns are of mixed gender the masculine wins:

• o pai e a mãe estão cansados - “the father and mother are tired” (masculine plural cansados).
• uma saia e um casaco novos - “a new skirt and coat” (masculine plural novos).

Where the adjective goes: after the noun

The default and by far the commonest position is after the noun: um livro interessante, uma cidade bonita, sapatos pretos. Reaching for the English order and saying uma vermelha maçã is the single most audible beginner error.

A few short, very common adjectives naturally come before the noun, especially bom, mau, grande, pequeno and ordinals: um bom livro, um mau dia, o primeiro comboio. Putting them before tends to read as a general or subjective judgement rather than a distinguishing feature.

Adjectives that change meaning by position

For a small set, the position is not a matter of taste - it changes the meaning. Learn these as pairs:

• um grande homem “a great man” vs um homem grande “a big/tall man”.
• um velho amigo “an old (long-standing) friend” vs um amigo velho “an elderly friend”.
• um pobre homem “a poor (pitiable) man” vs um homem pobre “a poor (penniless) man”.
• uma simples pergunta “a mere question” vs uma pergunta simples “a simple (easy) question”.

Before the noun the adjective is figurative or emotional; after it, literal and descriptive.

Forms & patterns

Adjective classes and their four (or two) forms:

Position and meaning:

Examples

Common mistakes

• uma vermelha maçã -> uma maçã vermelha - the adjective normally goes AFTER the noun; do not import the English word order.
• a casa branco / meninas altos -> a casa branca, meninas altas - the adjective must copy the noun’s gender and number, every time.
• uma mulher grande meaning “a great woman” -> uma grande mulher - after the noun grande means “big”; the “great” sense needs the pre-noun slot.
• granda, inteligenta -> grande, inteligente - adjectives in -e have no separate feminine; only nationalities and -or words add -a (portuguesa, trabalhadora).
• sapatos azuls / problemas fáceis written facils -> azuis, fáceis - adjectives in -l drop it and add -is.
• Ela é Francesa -> Ela é francesa - nationalities and language names are lower-case in Portuguese.
• o pai e a mãe estão cansadas -> cansados - with mixed-gender nouns the shared adjective takes the masculine plural.

Tips

• Make “noun first, adjective second” your reflex: comida boa, tempo bom, uma pergunta difícil. Only bom, mau, grande, pequeno and ordinals slip comfortably in front.
• Tie the adjective’s ending to the noun you can see: if the noun is feminine plural, the adjective ends the same way (as casas antigas).
• Keep the meaning-shift pairs on a flashcard - grande, velho, pobre, simples - because getting the side wrong changes what you actually say.
• For nationalities remember two things at once: they inflect for gender (espanhol / espanhola) and they are written lower-case.
• When two nouns share one adjective, default to masculine plural unless both nouns are feminine.
• In Brazil: agreement and position work exactly as in Portugal; the differences you notice are vocabulary, not grammar - Portugal’s giro / gira (“nice, cool”) is Brazil’s legal, but both still agree with their noun.

In short

The present indicative is the workhorse of Portuguese: it covers what you do now, what you do regularly, and general truths. Portuguese has no separate “I speak / I am speaking / I do speak” - the single form falo is all three. Learn the three regular patterns here - verbs whose infinitive ends in -ar, -er or -ir - and you can already conjugate the large majority of Portuguese verbs. And because the ending itself tells you who is acting, you normally drop the subject pronoun (Lesson 3): falo on its own means “I speak”.

The rule

The three conjugations

Every Portuguese verb belongs to one of three groups, named after the last two letters of its infinitive:

• 1st conjugation, -ar - by far the largest and the one most new verbs join: falar (to speak), morar (to live), trabalhar (to work), estudar (to study), comprar (to buy), gostar (to like).
• 2nd conjugation, -er: comer (to eat), beber (to drink), aprender (to learn), escrever (to write), viver (to live).
• 3rd conjugation, -ir: partir (to leave), abrir (to open), decidir (to decide), dividir (to divide), assistir (to attend/watch).

To conjugate, take the infinitive, drop the two-letter ending to get the stem (fal-, com-, part-), and add the present-tense ending for the person you need.

The endings, person by person

The eu form ends in -o in all three conjugations, and the nós form ends in -mos in all three - so those two persons are almost free once you know one verb. The rest follow the group:

• -ar verbs take -o, -as, -a, -amos, -ais, -am.
• -er verbs take -o, -es, -e, -emos, -eis, -em.
• -ir verbs take -o, -es, -e, -imos, -is, -em.

Notice that -er and -ir verbs share four of their six endings; they differ only in the nós form (comemos vs partimos) and the archaic vós form (comeis vs partis). Remember from Lesson 3 that você, o senhor / a senhora and ele / ela all take the third-person ending (fala, come, parte), and that vós has died out in everyday Portugal - use vocês for “you all”.

One present, three English tenses

Estudo português can mean “I study Portuguese”, “I am studying Portuguese”, or “I do study Portuguese”, all at once. Portuguese does have a dedicated way to stress an action in progress (estar a + infinitivo, Lesson 9), but the plain present already carries habits, schedules and current facts, so do not reach for a progressive just because English happens to use “-ing”.

gostar de - saying what you like

Gostar is a perfectly regular -ar verb (gosto, gostas, gosta…), but it is never used bare: in Portuguese you like of something, so gostar is always followed by de.

• Gosto de café. (I like coffee.)
• Gostas de viajar? (Do you like travelling? - de followed by an infinitive.)

Remember from Lesson 2 that de contracts with a following definite article: de + o = do, de + a = da, and so on - so “I like the coffee” is Gosto do café, never gosto de o café.

achar que - giving an opinion

Achar (regular -ar: acho, achas, acha…) followed by que is the everyday way to introduce an opinion, exactly like English “I think that…”: Acho que sim (I think so), Acho que é caro (I think it is expensive). Keep acho que in your pocket - it is how Portuguese speakers hedge and give a view.

Forms & patterns

The present-tense endings, side by side:

The same three verbs written out in full:

The vós forms (falais, comeis, partis) are given only for completeness; they are archaic or regional (Lesson 3). In real European Portuguese, use vocês + the third-person plural form (falam, comem, partem).

Examples

Common mistakes

• eu falo, eu como, eu estudo -> falo, como, estudo - drop the subject pronoun (Lesson 3); the ending already tells you it is “I”, and repeating eu sounds heavy and foreign.
• gosto café -> gosto de café - gostar always takes de; you like of something. Leaving out de is simply ungrammatical.
• gosto de o café -> gosto do café - de contracts with the article: de + o = do, de + a = da (Lesson 2). The uncontracted form is wrong.
• tu partis, nós partemos -> tu partes, nós partimos - the -ir group differs from -er only at nós (-imos) and the old vós (-is); everywhere else the two match.
• eu fala, ela falas -> eu falo, ela fala - match the ending to the person; você / ele / ela all take the bare third-person form (-a or -e), never the -s of tu.
• eu comeco -> começo - começar is regular, but every present form keeps the ç (começo, começas, começa…) to preserve its soft /s/ sound before o and a (the hard/soft spelling system, treated in the reading & pronunciation guide). This is spelling, not a change of ending.

Tips

• Learn the infinitive ending together with every new verb - -ar, -er or -ir is what tells you which pattern to apply.
• Master the eu (-o) and nós (-mos) forms first: they look the same across all three conjugations, so you are already a third of the way into any regular verb.
• Treat -er and -ir as near-twins - identical except at nós (comemos vs partimos). If you know one, you almost know the other.
• Make the plain present your all-purpose “now and usually” tense, and save estar a + infinitivo (Lesson 9) for when you truly need to stress “right at this moment”.
• Bank gosto de… and acho que… as ready-made openers - they let you say what you like and what you think from day one.
• In Brazil: the ordinary way to say “I am doing” is the gerund (estou comendo, estou estudando), where European Portuguese uses estar a + infinitivo (estou a comer). The plain present forms in the tables above are the same in both varieties.

In short

The verbs you reach for most often - ser, estar, ter, ir, vir, fazer, poder - break the neat patterns of Lesson 6, so they have to be learned as whole forms rather than built from a stem. Between the fully regular verbs and these outright irregulars sits a large, well-behaved middle group: -ir verbs that are regular everywhere except the eu form, where the stem vowel shifts (prefiro, visto, durmo). Master the eu forms and you have tamed most of the difficulty, because that is exactly where Portuguese irregularity hides.

The rule

Vowel-alternation verbs: only the eu form changes

A big family of -ir verbs whose stem vowel is e or o raise that vowel in the eu form only: e -> i and o -> u. Every other person keeps the original vowel and the regular -ir endings from Lesson 6.

• preferir (to prefer): prefiro, but preferes, prefere, preferimos, preferem.
• vestir (to dress): visto, but vestes, veste…
• sentir (to feel): sinto, but sentes, sente…
• servir (to serve): sirvo, but serves, serve…
• dormir (to sleep): durmo, but dormes, dorme…

So the trap is narrow: say prefiro and durmo for “I”, but never carry the shifted vowel into the other persons (preferes, not prefires; dormes, not durmes).

The high-frequency irregulars

A handful of extremely common verbs have present forms you simply memorise. Their eu forms are the least guessable of all, so drill those first:

• ser “to be” (identity): sou, és, é, somos, são.
• estar “to be” (state, location): estou, estás, está, estamos, estão.
• ter “to have”: tenho, tens, tem, temos, têm.
• ir “to go”: vou, vais, vai, vamos, vão.
• vir “to come”: venho, vens, vem, vimos, vêm.
• fazer “to do / make”: faço, fazes, faz, fazemos, fazem.
• poder “can, to be able”: posso, podes, pode, podemos, podem.

Ser and estar both translate English “to be”; which one to use, and how ter and haver divide up “to have” and “there is”, is the whole of Lesson 8 - here just fix their forms in memory.

Watch the accented third persons

Two of these verbs mark the third-person plural with a circumflex to keep it apart from the singular, which is otherwise spelled the same:

• ter: ele tem (singular) vs eles têm (plural).
• vir: ela vem (singular) vs elas vêm (plural).

In speech the plural is a touch longer; in writing the accent is obligatory - dropping it changes the meaning from “they” to “he/she”.

saber vs conhecer: two ways to “know”

English “know” splits into two Portuguese verbs, and choosing the wrong one is a giveaway:

• saber = to know a fact, or to know how to do something (saber + infinitive). Its eu form is irregular: sei, sabes, sabe, sabemos, sabem. So Sei a resposta (“I know the answer”), Sabes nadar? (“Can you / do you know how to swim?”), Não sei (“I don’t know”).
• conhecer = to be acquainted with a person, a place, or a thing. It is regular apart from the spelling of the eu form, which takes ç to keep its soft sound: conheço, conheces, conhece, conhecemos, conhecem. So Conheço a Maria, Conheces Lisboa?

Rule of thumb: if you could rephrase it as “I know that…” or “I know how to…”, use saber; if it is “I know this person / place”, use conhecer.

Giving an opinion, revisited

With saber and achar (Lesson 6) you can already qualify what you say: Acho que sim, mas não sei ao certo (“I think so, but I’m not sure”).

Forms & patterns

Vowel-alternation -ir verbs - note that only the eu column shifts:

The principal irregular verbs:

Choosing between the two “know” verbs:

Examples

Common mistakes

• eu prefero, eu dormo -> prefiro, durmo - the eu form of these -ir verbs raises the vowel (e -> i, o -> u); do not spread it to the other persons (preferes, dormes).
• conheço que fica longe -> sei que fica longe - facts take saber, never conhecer. Use conhecer only for people, places and things.
• sei a tua irmã -> conheço a tua irmã - people are known with conhecer, not saber.
• conheço nadar -> sei nadar - “to know how to” is saber + infinitive.
• eu fazo, eu sabo, eu podo -> faço, sei, posso - these eu forms are memorised irregulars, not built from the stem.
• eles tem, elas vem -> eles têm, elas vêm - the third-person plural of ter and vir needs the circumflex; without it the word reads as “he/she”.
• tu és used for polite address, e.g. o senhor és -> o senhor é - você and o senhor / a senhora take the third-person form (é, tem, vem), like ele / ela.

Tips

• Attack the eu forms first - sou, estou, tenho, vou, venho, faço, posso, sei - since they are the most irregular part of each verb and the ones you say constantly.
• For the vowel-alternation group, learn the pair “eu-form vs the-rest” (prefiro / preferes, durmo / dormes); everything after the eu form is regular.
• Sort your “knows”: saber pairs with a fact or an infinitive, conhecer pairs with a name or a place. Test yourself by trying “I know that…” (saber) versus “I know this person” (conhecer).
• Hear tem vs têm and vem vs vêm as singular vs plural; in writing, never leave off the plural circumflex.
• These verbs carry most of your everyday speech, so the time you spend memorising them pays back faster than any regular verb would.
• In Brazil: the forms above are the same, but speakers use você with the third-person endings far more than tu, so you will hear você tem, você vem, você sabe where Portugal often says tens, vens, sabes.

In short

Four verbs carry an outsized share of everyday Portuguese: ser and estar, which English merges into the single verb “to be”, ter, which is “to have” but also the verb for your age and for feeling hungry or cold, and haver, whose one form “há” means “there is” and “there are”. Telling ser and estar apart is the biggest hurdle in this lesson: ser says what something fundamentally is, while estar says how or where it is right now. Learn these four verbs and you can already describe people, places, states and existence.

The rule

You met the present-tense forms of these irregular verbs in step 8. This lesson is about when to use each one.

ser: identity and essence

Use ser for what something is in a stable, defining way: identity and classification, origin and nationality, profession, the material a thing is made of, dates and clock time, and inherent qualities.

• Identity and nationality: Eu sou o Pedro. Ela é portuguesa.
• Profession: O meu pai é médico.
• Material and origin: A mesa é de madeira. O vinho é do Douro.
• Time and dates: Hoje é segunda-feira. São três horas.
• Inherent quality: O gelo é frio. Ele é alto.

estar: state, condition and current location

Use estar for the state something is in at the moment: feelings and physical condition, the weather, the result of a change, and the current position of a movable person or thing.

• Feeling and condition: Estou cansado. A sopa está quente.
• Weather: Está frio hoje. Está a chover.
• Result of a change: A porta está aberta. As luzes estão acesas.
• Current position: O carro está na garagem. Nós estamos em casa.

ser vs estar with the same adjective

Many adjectives accept both verbs and change meaning. Ser gives a defining trait; estar gives a passing state or a fresh impression:

• Ele é nervoso (a nervous person) vs Ele está nervoso (nervous right now).
• A fruta é verde (a green-coloured fruit) vs A fruta está verde (unripe).
• A Ana é bonita (she is beautiful) vs A Ana está bonita hoje (she looks lovely today).

Ask yourself: essence or condition? That question decides the verb.

ter: having, and the states English calls “being”

Ter is “to have” for possession: Tenho um carro. Tens irmãos? But Portuguese also uses ter for age and for a long list of bodily and mental states where English uses “to be”: you literally “have” hunger, thirst, cold, fear and years. This is a frequent English-speaker error, so learn the set as fixed phrases: Tenho fome, Tenho frio, Tenho vinte anos, Tens razão.

haver: “há” for there is and there are

The everyday job of haver is the impersonal form há, meaning “there is” and “there are”. It never changes for number: Há um problema and Há muitos problemas both use há. The negative is Não há: Não há pão. The other personal forms (hei, hás, hão) are rare on their own and belong to the periphrasis “haver de”, which you meet much later.

ficar: where fixed things are, and becoming

Ficar (a regular -ar verb) fills two gaps that estar does not cover well. First, the fixed position of a place or building: O banco fica na esquina. Onde fica a estação? Second, “to become” - a change of state: Ela ficou contente. A água ficou fria. It also means “to stay”: Hoje fico em casa.

Forms & patterns

Present indicative of the four verbs, plus ficar:

The archaic vós forms (sois, estais, tendes, ficais) are not used in modern European Portuguese and can be ignored.

The verb haver in the present - in practice you only need “há”:

Ser versus estar at a glance:

States that use ter, not ser or estar:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Eu estou português -> Eu sou português - nationality and identity are defining, so they take ser, never estar.
• Eu sou cansado (meaning tired now) -> Eu estou cansado - a passing state takes estar; “sou cansado” would mean you are a tiring person by nature.
• Sou vinte anos, Estou vinte anos -> Tenho vinte anos - age is expressed with ter, not with ser or estar.
• Estou fome, Sou fome -> Tenho fome - hunger, thirst, cold, fear and being right all use ter (Tenho fome, Tenho frio, Tens razão).
• Tem um problema (meaning there is a problem) -> Há um problema - existence in European Portuguese is “há”; using “tem” for “there is” is Brazilian.
• Hão muitas pessoas -> Há muitas pessoas - “há” is invariable and stays singular for both “there is” and “there are”.
• A estação está no centro (as its permanent location) -> A estação fica no centro - the fixed location of a building or place normally uses ficar, while estar suits where a movable thing is right now.

Tips

• Split “to be” in two: ser is what something IS (identity, origin, profession, material, dates, inherent traits); estar is the state it is IN right now (feelings, weather, results, current position). When unsure, ask “essence or condition?”.
• Age and bodily states are ter, not “to be”: Tenho vinte anos, Tenho frio, Tenho sede, Tens razão. Treat English “I am hungry” as a false friend for “Tenho fome”.
• Existence is one unchanging word: há. It does not agree in number (há um carro, há muitos carros), and it is the European way to say “there is” and “there are”.
• Reach for ficar for the fixed position of places (O museu fica perto) and for “becoming” (ficar contente, A sopa ficou fria). It also means “to stay”: Fico em casa.
• The same adjective can switch verbs and switch meaning: é verde (a green thing) vs está verde (unripe); é aberto (open by nature, an open person) vs está aberto (open at the moment).
• In Brazil: “ter” is commonly used for existence in speech - “tem pão?” for “is there any bread?” - where European Portuguese keeps “há pão?”. Both are understood, but use “há” in EP.

In short

The plain present of Lesson 6 already covers “I work” and “I am working”, so Portuguese does not need a progressive the way English does. But when you want to stress that something is happening right at this moment, European Portuguese has a dedicated shape: estar a + infinitivo - Estou a trabalhar, “I am (in the act of) working”. This is one of a family of aspectual periphrases: a conjugated helper verb plus a fixed little word plus an infinitive, together saying when in its life an action is - just starting, in progress, habitual, or just finished. This lesson gives you four you will use constantly: estar a (in progress now), costumar (habitually), começar a (starting), and acabar de (just finished). All of them work by conjugating only the first verb; the second verb stays in the infinitive.

The rule

estar a + infinitive - the “-ing right now” of European Portuguese

Take estar (Lesson 8: estou, estás, está, estamos, estão), add a, and add the infinitive of the action:

• Estou a ler. - I am reading (right now).
• A Ana está a dormir. - Ana is sleeping.
• Estamos a aprender português. - We are learning Portuguese.
• O que estás a fazer? - What are you doing?

Reach for it only when you genuinely mean “in progress at this instant”. For habits, schedules and general facts, the plain present is still correct and far more common: Trabalho num banco (I work in a bank), not Estou a trabalhar num banco. English “-ing” is not a reliable signal - I am learning Portuguese this year is a background situation, better said with the plain present Aprendo português este ano or with ando a aprender (see Lesson 43), not with estou a aprender.

Brazilian note: this is the single most visible Europe/Brazil difference in everyday verbs. Brazil uses estar + gerund - estou trabalhando, ela está dormindo - exactly where European Portuguese uses estar a + infinitivo (estou a trabalhar, ela está a dormir). Both are fully correct in their own norm; this path teaches the European estar a form. Lesson 10 maps the divide, and Lesson 47 covers the gerund.

costumar + infinitive - what you usually do

Costumar (a regular -ar verb: costumo, costumas, costuma, costumamos, costumam) plus the infinitive means “to usually / to be in the habit of”. It is the cleanest way to mark a habit without an adverb:

• Costumo tomar café ao pequeno-almoço. - I usually have coffee at breakfast.
• Costumamos jantar às oito. - We usually have dinner at eight.
• Não costumo ver televisão. - I don’t usually watch television.

Note that costumar itself is almost always in the present for a current habit; do not add “usually” separately - costumo already carries it.

começar a + infinitive - the action starting up

Começar (regular -ar, with the ç kept before o and a: começo, começas, começa, começamos, começam) plus a plus the infinitive marks the beginning of an action - it is starting or about to be under way:

• Começo a trabalhar às nove. - I start working at nine.
• Está a começar a chover. - It’s starting to rain. (here começar is itself inside estar a)
• As crianças começam a ler aos seis anos. - Children start reading at six.

The linking word is a, and it is obligatory: começar + infinitive without a is wrong.

acabar de + infinitive - the action just finished

Acabar (regular -ar: acabo, acabas, acaba, acabamos, acabam) plus de plus the infinitive means “to have just done” something - the action is barely over. Portuguese uses the present of acabar for this, where English uses “have just”:

• Acabo de chegar. - I have just arrived.
• Ela acaba de sair. - She has just left.
• Acabamos de comer. - We have just eaten.

Mind the preposition: it is de here (just finished), against the a of começar a (just starting). Swapping them changes the meaning entirely.

Forms & patterns

Every periphrasis has the same skeleton - conjugate the first verb, keep the second as an infinitive - and each has its own fixed linking word:

The helper verb costumar conjugated in full, as the model -ar helper:

Only the first verb changes for person and tense; the infinitive after the link never changes.

Examples

Common mistakes

• Estou trabalhando -> Estou a trabalhar - the European progressive is estar a + infinitivo; estar + gerund is the Brazilian form.
• Trabalho agora meaning “I’m working at this very moment” -> Estou a trabalhar - when you must stress “right now”, use estar a; the plain present alone reads as a habit or a general fact.
• Estou a trabalhar num banco as your job in general -> Trabalho num banco - do not use estar a for permanent facts and routines; keep it for actions in progress.
• Começo trabalhar às nove -> Começo a trabalhar às nove - começar needs the linking a before the infinitive.
• Acabo a comer (meaning “I’ve just eaten”) -> Acabo de comer - “just finished” is acabar de; a would point the wrong way.
• Costumo a fazer -> Costumo fazer - costumar takes the infinitive directly, with no linking word.
• Uso costumar tomar café / adding “usually” twice -> Costumo tomar café - costumar already means “usually”; conjugate it and stop there.

Tips

• Default to the plain present (Lesson 6). Only switch to estar a + infinitivo when you truly mean “in the act, this second”.
• Learn each periphrasis with its glue word attached, as one chunk: estar a…, começar a…, acabar de…, costumar (no word)…. The wrong preposition is the most common slip.
• Contrast the two edges of an action: começar a = it is just starting; acabar de = it has just finished. Practise them as a pair to keep a and de straight.
• Only the first verb carries person and tense. Everything you learned about conjugating -ar verbs (Lesson 6) applies to costumar, começar and acabar, and the infinitive after them is fixed.
• These four are “part I”. More aspectual periphrases - tenho feito, ando a fazer, voltar a fazer, deixar de fazer - come once you have the compound past, in Lesson 43.

In short

Portuguese is one language with two big written-and-spoken standards: European Portuguese (português europeu, pt-PT, spoken in Portugal) and Brazilian Portuguese (português do Brasil, pt-BR). They are as close as British and American English - a Lisbon speaker and a São Paulo speaker understand each other fully - but they differ in pronunciation, forms of address, where pronouns go, and a long list of everyday words. This path teaches the European norm, because the rest of this course’s material (phrases, vocabulary) uses it too. This one lesson is a map of the differences, placed early on purpose: most Portuguese you meet online, in music, and on streaming is Brazilian, so you need to recognise both while you learn to produce European. Nothing here is a rule to memorise - it is orientation, so that later lessons’ European forms (the estar a progressive, enclitic pronouns, há for “there is”) do not surprise you.

The rule

Pronunciation: the fastest way to tell them apart

The clearest audible difference is what happens to unstressed vowels. European Portuguese reduces and often swallows them - telefone sounds close to “tlefon”, pequeno like “pqueno” - which makes EP sound clipped and consonant-heavy. Brazilian keeps vowels fuller and more open, so the same words sound more evenly syllable-timed and, to many learners, easier to catch at first.

Two more signposts:

• Final and pre-consonant -s is a “sh” sound in EP (os livros = “ush livrush”), but a plain “s” in most of Brazil (“os livros”).
• Brazilian palatalises di and ti: dia sounds like “djia”, tia like “tchia”. European keeps a plain d and t.

You do not need to do anything with this yet - just know that the same word can sound very different, so listening practice should include the accent you are targeting.

Address: tu vs você

You met the address system in Lesson 3. Here is where the two norms split hardest:

• Portugal: tu is the normal informal “you” (friends, family, children), with its own second-person verb form (tu falas, tu tens). você and o senhor / a senhora are the polite/formal options.
• Brazil: você is the default “you” for almost everyone, informal and neutral alike, and it takes the third-person verb (você fala, você tem). tu survives in some regions but is often used colloquially with a third-person verb (tu fala), which is non-standard in Portugal.

Both norms share vocês for plural “you”. The colloquial a gente (“we”, literally “the people”, taking a singular verb: a gente vai) exists in both but is extremely common in Brazil.

Where the pronoun goes: enclisis vs proclisis

This is a preview of Lessons 29-32, but the split is worth seeing now. Object pronouns like me, te, se attach after the verb in European Portuguese (enclisis: Chamo-me Ana, Dá-me isso), while Brazilian speech puts them before the verb (proclisis: Me chamo Ana, Me dá isso), and Brazilians freely begin a sentence with the pronoun - something European Portuguese avoids.

”There is”, the progressive, and other verb habits

Three high-frequency differences you have already touched or will soon:

• Progressive (Lesson 9): EP estar a + infinitivo (Estou a comer) vs BR estar + gerúndio (Estou comendo).
• “There is” (Lesson 8): EP uses há (Há pão?); colloquial Brazil often uses tem (Tem pão?).
• Prepositions of motion: EP tends to ir a / chegar a where Brazil often uses ir em / chegar em in speech.

Words: same object, different name

Vocabulary is where the two norms diverge most for daily life. A few you will meet constantly:

Watch the false-friend traps, where the same word means different things: rapariga is simply “girl/young woman” in Portugal but is offensive slang in Brazil; propina is a university tuition fee in Portugal but a bribe in Brazil. When in doubt about such a word, choose a neutral synonym.

Spelling: mostly shared, a few accents apart

The 1990 Orthographic Agreement brought the two spellings much closer (both sides dropped most silent consonants: ação, ótimo). Residual differences are small and mostly in accents over vowels that the two norms pronounce differently: EP António, económico, ténis vs BR Antônio, econômico, tênis; EP keeps the audible c in facto where BR writes fato.

Forms & patterns

A one-glance contrast of the features that matter most for a learner:

Examples

The same sentence in each norm:

Common mistakes

These are the slips an EP learner makes by absorbing Brazilian input:

• Defaulting to você with friends in Portugal -> use tu - in Portugal você can sound distant or even curt among equals; tu is the friendly norm.
• Tem pão? for “Is there any bread?” in EP -> Há pão? - tem for existence is Brazilian; European Portuguese uses há.
• Estou comendo -> Estou a comer - the gerund progressive is Brazilian; EP uses estar a + infinitivo.
• Me chamo Ana at the start of a sentence -> Chamo-me Ana - European Portuguese attaches the pronoun after the verb and does not open a sentence with a clitic.
• Calling a young woman rapariga while thinking of the Brazilian meaning -> in Portugal rapariga is the ordinary, neutral word for “girl”; it is the Brazilian sense that is rude.
• Mixing norms in one sentence (Você estás a trabalhar?) -> pick one system: você pairs with third-person verbs, tu with second-person - do not cross them.

Tips

• Choose one norm and stay consistent. For this path that is European: tu, estar a + infinitivo, enclitic pronouns, há. Consistency reads as fluent; mixing reads as unsure.
• Understand both, produce one. Since most media is Brazilian, expect to hear proclisis, gerunds and você - map each back to its EP equivalent rather than adopting it.
• Treat the vocabulary pairs as flashcards: knowing autocarro / ônibus, comboio / trem, telemóvel / celular prevents blank stares in either country.
• Do not over-worry about accents (António vs Antônio): spelling is 90% shared and both sides will read you clearly. The differences that actually change comprehension are tu/você, pronoun position, and vocabulary.
• Later lessons flag “In Brazil: …” exactly where a European form would trip you. This lesson is the master key to those notes.

In short

You can already talk about now (Lesson 6) and about what is happening this second (Lesson 9). This lesson gives you two more everyday tools, both built on the same simple shape - a conjugated helper verb plus an infinitive. The first is the near future: ir (“to go”) in the present plus an infinitive, Vou comer = “I am going to eat” - this is how Portuguese speakers actually talk about plans, far more than with the one-word future you meet later in Lesson 32. The second is the family of modal verbs - poder, dever, ter de, precisar de - which let you say what you can, should, have to and need to do. In every case you conjugate only the first verb; the action stays in the infinitive.

The rule

ir + infinitive - the near future

Take ir in the present (it is irregular - Lesson 7: vou, vais, vai, vamos, vão), then add the infinitive of the action. That is the whole recipe:

• Vou estudar hoje à noite. - I’m going to study tonight.
• Vais gostar deste livro. - You’re going to like this book.
• Amanhã vamos visitar os meus pais. - Tomorrow we’re going to visit my parents.

There is no “a” between ir and the infinitive. Spanish says voy a comer; Portuguese says vou comer. Slipping an a in there is the most common single error with this structure. The near future covers plans, predictions and decisions just made (Vou ajudar-te = “I’ll help you”). For a genuine, distant, or more formal future, Portuguese also has a one-word future tense, but you do not need it yet - in speech ir + infinitivo does almost all the work.

Modal verbs - can, should, have to, need to

A modal is a verb that props up another verb to add a shade of meaning: possibility, obligation, advice. Portuguese modals work exactly like the periphrases you already know - conjugate the modal, leave the main verb in the infinitive. Four carry you a long way:

• poder (can, may) - ability and permission: Posso entrar? (“May I come in?”), Não podes fumar aqui (“You can’t smoke here”).
• dever (should, ought to) - advice and mild obligation: Deves descansar (“You should rest”). Dever also expresses probability: Ela deve estar em casa (“She must be at home”).
• ter de (have to) - real obligation or necessity: Tenho de ir (“I have to go”). Note the linking de.
• precisar de (to need to) - necessity, slightly softer than ter de: Preciso de dormir (“I need to sleep”). Note the linking de here too - and that precisar de also works before a noun: Preciso de ajuda.

The split to memorise: poder and dever take the infinitive directly, while ter and precisar need de before it.

Forms & patterns

The near future - ir (present) + infinitive, with no linking word:

The four modals in the present, and the link each one takes before the infinitive:

As with Lesson 9, only the first verb changes for person and tense; the infinitive after it never changes.

Examples

Common mistakes

• Vou a comer -> Vou comer - the Portuguese near future is ir + infinitivo with NO “a”; the a belongs to Spanish, not Portuguese.
• Nós vai comer -> Nós vamos comer - conjugate ir for the subject (vou, vais, vai, vamos, vão) before adding the infinitive.
• Vou comerei -> Vou comer - after vou / vais / vai… the second verb is a plain infinitive, never itself conjugated.
• Posso a entrar? -> Posso entrar? - poder takes the bare infinitive, with no linking word (the same goes for dever).
• Tenho ir -> Tenho de ir - obligation is ter de + infinitivo; the de is not optional in European Portuguese.
• Preciso estudar -> Preciso de estudar - in EP precisar keeps de before the infinitive; dropping it is Brazilian.
• Devo de estudar meaning “I should study” -> Devo estudar - dever + bare infinitive is “should”; adding de pushes it toward “probably” and is best left alone for now.

Tips

• For everyday plans, ir + infinitivo is your workhorse: Amanhã vou estudar is far more natural in speech than the formal one-word future Amanhã estudarei (Lesson 32).
• These all follow the Lesson 9 pattern - “conjugate the first verb, keep the second in the infinitive.” Only the helper changes for the person.
• Learn each modal with its glue word, or lack of one: poder + inf, dever + inf, ter de + inf, precisar de + inf. The two “de” verbs are the ones learners get wrong.
• dever has a second job as “probably / must be”: Ela deve estar a dormir = “She must be sleeping.” Context separates the two uses.
• To ask permission politely, reach for Posso + infinitivo?: Posso entrar?, Posso pagar com cartão?.
• In Brazil: precisar usually drops the de before an infinitive (preciso estudar), and ter que is more common than ter de. Both are understood in Portugal, but keep precisar de and ter de in your own European Portuguese.

In short

A reflexive verb carries a small extra pronoun that points back to the subject: in chamar-se (“to be called”) you say chamo-me, literally “I call myself”. Portuguese leans on this pattern far more than English does - for getting up, sitting down, feeling a certain way, remembering and forgetting - so the very first sentence you learn, “Como te chamas?”, is already a reflexive verb. The one thing to lock in from day one is where the little pronoun goes: in European Portuguese it normally follows the verb and hooks on with a hyphen (chamo-me), but it jumps in front of the verb after “não” and after question words.

The rule

The reflexive pronoun

A reflexive verb pairs each subject with a matching pronoun. You already conjugate the verb the normal way (steps 7-8); the pronoun is the only new piece. There is one pronoun per person:

• eu -> me, tu -> te
• você / ele / ela -> se
• nós -> nos
• vocês / eles / elas -> se

The form vos belongs to the old subject vós, which modern European Portuguese no longer uses, so in practice you need only me, te, se, nos, se. Notice that se does double duty: it covers the singular você / ele / ela and the whole plural vocês / eles / elas.

What “reflexive” means, and verbs that just come with a pronoun

Some verbs are reflexive in the true sense - the action falls back on the subject. Lavar-se is “to wash oneself”, vestir-se is “to get dressed” (to dress oneself), sentar-se is “to sit (oneself) down”. Compare lavo o carro (“I wash the car”, the action goes outward) with lavo-me (“I wash myself”).

Many other verbs simply come attached to the pronoun with no separate “self” meaning at all - you just have to memorise them with -se. The big ones are lembrar-se de (“to remember”), esquecer-se de (“to forget”), queixar-se de (“to complain about”) and divertir-se (“to have fun”). Treat the -se as part of the word: the dictionary lists chamar-se, lembrar-se de, and that final -se is your signal that a pronoun is compulsory.

Where the pronoun goes: a first look

This is the part English speakers get wrong, so learn the two rules now and the full detail comes in step 31.

Default - enclisis: in a plain affirmative statement the pronoun follows the verb and is joined by a hyphen.

• Chamo-me Miguel. Ela levanta-se cedo. Nós sentamo-nos aqui.

Trigger - proclisis: two everyday things pull the pronoun in front of the verb, with no hyphen. First, negation (não, nunca, nada, ninguém). Second, a question word (como, quando, onde, quem, porque).

• Não me chamo Miguel. Como te chamas? Ele nunca se levanta cedo.

There is one small spelling adjustment: the nós ending -mos drops its final -s before the pronoun nos, so chamamos + nos becomes chamamo-nos and levantamos + nos becomes levantamo-nos.

With ir + infinitive

When a reflexive verb rides on ir + infinitive (step 12), the pronoun attaches to the infinitive at the end: Vou deitar-me cedo (“I am going to bed early”), Vamos sentar-nos ali (“Let’s sit over there”).

Forms & patterns

The reflexive pronoun for each subject:

Full present of chamar-se, in the default (enclitic) order:

Where the pronoun sits, at a glance:

High-frequency reflexive and pronominal verbs to memorise with their pronoun:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Chamo Miguel -> Chamo-me Miguel - chamar-se is reflexive; without the pronoun, “chamo” means “I call (someone else)”.
• Me chamo Ana (as a plain statement) -> Chamo-me Ana - in a simple affirmative the pronoun follows the verb; opening with “me” is the Brazilian order.
• Ele levanta se cedo -> Ele levanta-se cedo - the enclitic pronoun attaches with a hyphen, never as a separate word.
• Ele não levanta-se cedo -> Ele não se levanta cedo - after “não” the pronoun moves in front of the verb.
• Nós levantamos-nos -> Nós levantamo-nos - the nós ending loses its final -s before the pronoun nos.
• Como chamas-te? -> Como te chamas? - a question word pulls the pronoun before the verb.
• Eu lembro o teu nome -> Eu lembro-me do teu nome - lembrar-se needs both the pronoun and the preposition de (de + o = do).

Tips

• Learn each verb with its pronoun and its preposition already attached: chamar-se, levantar-se, lembrar-se de. The trailing -se in the dictionary is your reminder that a pronoun is obligatory.
• Default position is enclisis: pronoun after the verb, joined by a hyphen (deito-me, senta-se). This is the ordinary European Portuguese order for a plain statement.
• Just two everyday triggers flip it to proclisis (pronoun in front, no hyphen): negation (não, nunca) and question words (como, quando, onde). Compare Ele veste-se / Ele não se veste / Onde se veste ele?
• Remember the nós contraction: -mos loses its -s before nos, giving chamamo-nos, levantamo-nos, sentamo-nos.
• A few of these verbs demand a preposition you must not drop: lembrar-se DE, esquecer-se DE, queixar-se DE. Lembro-me de ti, esqueço-me das horas.
• In Brazil: the pronoun usually comes before the verb even in a plain statement (Ele se chama João, Me chamo Ana), and in casual speech the reflexive is often dropped (levantei cedo). European Portuguese keeps enclisis (Ele chama-se João) unless a trigger forces proclisis.

In short

This lesson gives you the small set of prepositions that say where something is and where it is going: em (in / on / at), a and para (to), de (from), por (through), plus phrases like ao lado de (beside) and em frente de (opposite). Two things make Portuguese different from English. First, most of these fuse with the following article into the contractions you met in Lesson 2 - em + o -> no, a + a -> à, de + o -> do - and the fusion is obligatory. Second, Portuguese splits “to” two ways: a for a place you go to and come back from, para for a place you head to and stay. Get the contractions automatic and the a / para split clear, and you can locate and move anything.

The rule

em - where something is (in, on, at)

Em is the all-purpose location preposition - English “in”, “on” and “at” all land on it. It contracts with the definite article: no, na, nos, nas.

Estou em casa (“I’m at home”), Moro no Porto, O livro está na mesa, Vivemos nos Açores. Use it with a static verb - estar, ficar, morar, viver - to say where someone or something is: A farmácia fica na avenida.

a and para - to (the two “to”s)

Both translate “to”, but they carry different journeys:

• a points at a destination you will come back from - a trip, an errand, a visit. It contracts: ao, à, aos, às. Vou ao cinema, Vamos à praia, Ela foi aos Açores.
• para points at a destination you are heading to and staying, or a general direction. It does not contract in writing: para o, para a. Vou para casa (“I’m going home”, to stay), Mudámo-nos para Lisboa (“We moved to Lisbon”).

Vou a Lisboa no sábado is a day trip; Vou para Lisboa is a move. When you are unsure, a is the safe everyday choice for outings.

de - from (origin), and por - through (route)

de marks where you come from; it contracts to do, da, dos, das. Sou de Coimbra, Venho do trabalho, O comboio parte da estação.

por marks the route travelled through or along; it contracts to pelo, pela, pelos, pelas. Passámos pela ponte, Andámos pelo parque.

até and entre

até = “as far as, up to” (it takes a + article, so it also contracts): Fomos até à estação, Anda até ao fim da rua. entre = “between, among” and does not contract: A escola fica entre a igreja e o café.

Location phrases: they all end in de

A large group of two- and three-word phrases pin down an exact position. Almost all of them end in de, which then contracts with the next article:

ao lado de, em frente de, atrás de, dentro de, em cima de, debaixo de, perto de, longe de, ao pé de (“next to”, colloquial EP).

So: ao lado do banco (“beside the bank”), em frente da igreja (“opposite the church”), dentro do carro, perto do rio. Never leave the de uncontracted.

Movement verbs carry a fixed preposition (and EP is strict here)

Some verbs demand a particular preposition, and European Portuguese is firm about which:

• chegar a (“arrive at”) - Cheguei a casa, Chegámos ao aeroporto. EP uses a, never em.
• ir a / ir para - as above.
• entrar em (“go into”) - Entrámos no restaurante.
• sair de (“leave, go out of”) - Saí de casa cedo.
• vir de (“come from”) - Venho de Faro.

casa, and asking “where to?”

Your own home drops the article: em casa, a casa, para casa - Estou em casa, Vou para casa, Cheguei a casa. And Portuguese distinguishes the two “where” questions: Onde? asks about location, Aonde? / Para onde? ask about direction. Onde estás? - Na escola. / Aonde vais? - À praia.

Forms & patterns

The core prepositions and their contractions (from Lesson 2):

Location phrases (all take de, so they contract):

Examples

Common mistakes

• cheguei em casa -> cheguei a casa - EP says chegar a; chegar em is Brazilian.
• em o parque -> no parque - the contraction is obligatory (Lesson 2); the open form is simply wrong.
• ao lado de o banco -> ao lado do banco - the de that ends a location phrase contracts too.
• Estou em a escola -> na escola - same rule with em + a.
• Mudei-me a Lisboa -> Mudei-me para Lisboa - a permanent move is para, not a.
• na França, na Itália -> in EP usually em França, em Itália - EP drops the article with most European countries (but keeps no Brasil, nos Estados Unidos, no Japão).
• Vou na praia -> Vou à praia - “go to” a place is a (or para), not em; em is for being there, not going there.
• até a estação -> até à estação - até combines with a + a, so it contracts to à.

Tips

• One line to memorise: em = where you are (no / na); a = go and come back (ao / à); para = go and stay; de = come from (do / da); por = go through (pelo / pela).
• Every location phrase ends in de, so expect a contraction right after it: perto do…, em frente da…, ao lado dos…. Train the fused form, not the open one.
• Treat your own home as article-free: em casa, a casa, para casa - the same goes for ir para a cama only when you mean the specific bed, but plain “to bed” stays para a cama.
• If a place is European and a country, try it without the article first (em França, em Espanha, em Inglaterra) - that is the EP default.
• In Brazil: the clearest split is arrival and destination - BP says chegar em and often ir em / ir para (cheguei em casa, vou na praia) where EP insists on chegar a and ir a (cheguei a casa, vou à praia). BP also keeps the article on countries (na França, no Egito) and leans on para / pra for most “to”.

In short

Numbers, the clock and the calendar are the machinery of everyday life - prices, times, ages, birthdays, appointments - so it pays to drill them until they are automatic. Portuguese numbers are mostly regular once you learn 0-20 and the tens, but three things surprise English speakers: a few numbers agree in gender (um/uma, dois/duas, and the hundreds), the word “e” (“and”) glues the parts of a number together, and telling the time uses the verb ser with the preposition-plus-article à / às you met in Lesson 2.

The rule

0 to 20

zero, um, dois, três, quatro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, dez, onze, doze, treze, catorze, quinze, dezasseis, dezassete, dezoito, dezanove, vinte. Note the European spellings catorze (14) and dezasseis / dezassete / dezanove (16/17/19); Brazil writes quatorze, dezesseis, dezessete, dezenove.

Tens, hundreds, thousands - and the “e”

The tens: vinte, trinta, quarenta, cinquenta, sessenta, setenta, oitenta, noventa. Above twenty, join with e: vinte e um, trinta e cinco, noventa e nove.

The hundred is cem on its own (or straight before a noun: cem euros), but cento inside a bigger number: cento e um (101), cento e cinquenta (150). The higher hundreds: duzentos, trezentos, quatrocentos, quinhentos, seiscentos, setecentos, oitocentos, novecentos.

Then mil (1000, invariable) and um milhão (plural milhões). Milhão takes de before a noun: um milhão de pessoas.

The e links the groups down to the last piece: cento e vinte e três (123), mil e quinze (1015), dois mil e vinte e cinco (2025). After mil, drop the e when a full hundreds group follows: mil duzentos e trinta (1230).

Gender agreement

Most numbers never change, but these do:

• um / uma, dois / duas: um livro / uma casa, dois cafés / duas cervejas.
• the hundreds 200-900: duzentos euros / duzentas pessoas, trezentos e um / trezentas e uma.

Everything else (três, quatro, … vinte, trinta, cem, mil) is fixed.

Telling the time

Ask with Que horas são? (“What time is it?”) and answer with ser:

• É with one: É uma hora. É meio-dia. É meia-noite.
• São with more than one: São duas horas. São dez e vinte.

Minutes past use e; the half and the quarter have names: São três e meia (3:30), São três e um quarto (3:15). Minutes to the hour use para as: São dez para as quatro (3:50), um quarto para as sete (6:45). The plain 24-hour reading also works: catorze e trinta (14:30).

“At” a time is where Lesson 2 pays off - use à / às (from a + a / a + as):

• à uma hora, ao meio-dia, à meia-noite
• às três, às oito e meia, às quinze horas
• add the part of day with da: às oito da manhã, às três da tarde, às dez da noite.

Days and months

The days (all lowercase): segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira, sexta-feira, sábado, domingo. The weekdays are feminine (a segunda-feira), the weekend days are masculine (o sábado, o domingo); feira is often dropped in speech (segunda). Watch the two prepositions: à segunda-feira = “on Mondays” (habitual), na segunda-feira = “on (this) Monday” (one specific day).

The months (lowercase in EP): janeiro, fevereiro, março, abril, maio, junho, julho, agosto, setembro, outubro, novembro, dezembro. “In” a month is plain em, with no article: em janeiro, em agosto.

Giving a date

Days of the month are cardinal numbers (not ordinals as in English): doze de outubro, not “twelfth”. The pattern is (o dia) NUMBER de MONTH de YEAR, and “on” that date is a or no dia:

• Hoje é (dia) doze de outubro.
• a 25 de abril de 1974 / no dia 25 de abril
• the first of the month may be read o dia um or o primeiro: a 1 de maio.

Years are read as plain numbers with em: em 2025 = em dois mil e vinte e cinco. Seasons take an article: no verão, no inverno, na primavera, no outono.

Ordinals (just the first few)

For order, floors and “the first”, use ordinals, which agree like adjectives: primeiro/a, segundo/a, terceiro/a, quarto/a, quinto/a … décimo/a. O primeiro andar (the first floor), a primeira vez (the first time). For dates and higher counts, EP prefers the cardinal (a página vinte, o dia doze).

Forms & patterns

Telling the time:

Examples

Common mistakes

• dois casas -> duas casas - dois/duas agrees; use duas before a feminine noun.
• duzentos pessoas -> duzentas pessoas - the hundreds 200-900 agree in gender too.
• cento euros -> cem euros - it is cem on its own, cento only inside a bigger number (cento e dez).
• a doze de outubro read as an ordinal -> Portuguese uses the cardinal: doze de outubro, not “décimo segundo”.
• São uma hora -> É uma hora - one o’clock is singular (é), only two and up take são.
• a as três -> às três - remember the Lesson 2 contraction a + as = às.
• no janeiro -> em janeiro - months take plain em with no article.

Tips

• Learn 0-20 and the tens as solid blocks; everything else is just e gluing the pieces together.
• Only four things ever change shape: um/uma, dois/duas, the hundreds, and the ordinals. Treat the rest as fixed.
• Lock the time preposition to the article rule from Lesson 2: “at o’clock” is always à / às (plus ao meio-dia, à meia-noite).
• For dates, keep the frame dia + NUMBER + de + MONTH: the number is always cardinal, the month always lowercase with em.
• In Brazil: numbers and time work the same, but note the spellings quatorze, dezesseis, dezessete, dezenove, and that “quarter past/to” is often said with the full number (três e quinze, quinze para as quatro).

In short

You now have nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives and a working present tense - this lesson assembles them into whole sentences and asks questions with them. Three habits carry most of the load, and all three are simpler than English. Portuguese word order is Subject - Verb - Object, just like English, but the subject is usually dropped because the verb ending already names it (Lesson 3). Negation is one word, não, placed right before the verb - there is no “do/does” and nothing to invert. And a question is made by intonation or a question mark alone, with the words in their normal order and, very often, the little frame é que slipped in. Learn these and you can already state, deny, join and ask.

The rule

Default order: Subject - Verb - Object

The neutral order matches English: A Ana bebe café (Ana drinks coffee). Because the verb ending marks the person (Lesson 6), the subject pronoun is normally left out: Bebo café (I drink coffee), not Eu bebo café unless you are contrasting or emphasising. Adjectives follow their noun (Lesson 5: um carro vermelho), and short adverbs and time or place phrases sit at the end or, for emphasis, at the front: Estudo português em casa / Hoje trabalho muito.

Portuguese is more flexible than English about putting the subject after the verb, especially with a handful of common verbs of happening, arriving and existing: Chegou o comboio (The train arrived), Falta uma cadeira (There is a chair missing), Telefonou a tua mãe (Your mother phoned). This is natural, not a question and not an error - but SVO is always safe, so lead with it and simply recognise the inverted version when you meet it.

Negation: não before the verb

Put não directly in front of the conjugated verb, and that is the whole rule:

• Falo inglês. -> Não falo inglês. (I don’t speak English.)
• A Ana come carne. -> A Ana não come carne.

There is no auxiliary “do”, so never build não faço falar or the like - just não + verb. The one thing that may sit between não and the verb is an object pronoun (that is Lesson 29-31); until then, keep não glued to the verb. As a one-word reply, não also means “no”: - Vens? - Não.

Portuguese uses double negation, and it is required, not wrong. When a negative word such as nada (nothing), ninguém (nobody) or nunca (never) comes after the verb, you keep não before the verb; when the negative word comes before the verb, you drop não:

• Não vejo nada. = I see nothing. (both negatives kept)
• Não vem ninguém. / Ninguém vem. (Nobody is coming.)
• Não como nunca fora. / Nunca como fora. (I never eat out.)

Yes/no questions: intonation, never inversion

To turn a statement into a yes/no question, change nothing about the word order - just raise your voice at the end (speech) or add a question mark (writing):

• Falas português. -> Falas português?
• O senhor quer um café?

There is no “do/does” and no swapping of subject and verb the way English does. Answering is where Portuguese surprises English speakers: instead of a bare “yes”, the natural reply echoes the verb:

• - Falas inglês? - Falo. (Yes, I do.)
• - Tens tempo? - Não tenho. (No, I don’t.)

You can add Sim (yes) or Não (no), but the verb-echo is what a native speaker reaches for first.

The é que frame

Portuguese very often reinforces a question with é que placed right after the question word (or a fronted element), with no change of meaning - it simply makes the question run more smoothly and is extremely common in speech:

• Onde moras? = Onde é que moras? (Where do you live?)
• O que fazes? = O que é que fazes?
• Quando é que chega o comboio?

Learn it as one fixed chunk: [question word] + é que + [ordinary sentence]. The rest of the sentence keeps its normal order.

Information questions: the question words

An information question puts the question word at the front; if the subject is named, it usually follows the verb (Onde mora a Ana?).

• quem - who; o que / que - what; onde - where; quando - when
• como - how; quanto/-a/-os/-as - how much / how many (it agrees, Lesson 14); qual / quais - which
• porquê? stands alone or ends the question (Porquê?), while porque introduces the reason - because - and, in European Portuguese, is also written as one word inside a direct question: Porque não vens? / Porque é que não vens? Answer with the same porque: Porque não tenho tempo.

Joining simple clauses

Link two short clauses with a coordinating word: e (and), mas (but), ou (or), porque (because), por isso (so / therefore).

• Quero ir, mas não tenho tempo.
• Estudo português porque gosto da cultura.
• Está a chover, por isso fico em casa.

Forms & patterns

One sentence in its four shapes:

The core question words:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Você faz gostar de café? / Fazes tu falar inglês? -> Gostas de café?, Falas inglês? - Portuguese has no “do/does” auxiliary; make a yes/no question with intonation and a question mark, nothing else.
• Eu não gosto de café, eu bebo chá (every clause with eu) -> Não gosto de café, bebo chá - drop the subject pronoun (Lesson 3); the ending already carries it.
• Não vejo alguma coisa -> Não vejo nada - a negative sentence takes the negative word, and the double negative (não … nada / ninguém / nunca) is correct, not “wrong grammar”.
• Ninguém não vem -> Ninguém vem / Não vem ninguém - use não only when the negative word follows the verb; if it comes first, drop não.
• Onde tu moras? with English rhythm -> Onde é que moras? or Onde moras? - after a question word the natural European Portuguese frame is é que, or the subject simply follows the verb.
• Por que? / Porque? as a standalone “why?” -> Porquê? - the stressed one-word question is porquê; porque (one word, unstressed) introduces the reason.

Tips

• Make SVO with a dropped subject your default sentence, and only add the pronoun for contrast or emphasis (Eu pago, tu escolhes).
• To negate, slide não in front of the verb and stop; there is nothing else to change.
• Build questions with your voice or a ”?” - never with “do”. If it helps, imagine every English “do you / does he” simply vanishing.
• Treat é que as a single ready-made piece that clips onto a question word; it makes you sound immediately more natural and changes no meaning.
• Practise answering yes/no questions by echoing the verb (- Podes? - Posso.); it is the reflex a native speaker expects.
• In Brazil the same order, negation and intonation questions apply; the main everyday difference is that você is the default “you”, so the second-person verb forms above are heard less and the third-person forms carry more of the conversation.

In short

Indefinites are the words that say how much, how many, and which unspecified one - algum livro (“some book”), muita gente (“a lot of people”), nada (“nothing”). Portuguese splits them into two families you must keep apart. Most are adjective-like and agree with their noun in gender and number, exactly like the adjectives of Lesson 5: muito -> muita -> muitos -> muitas. A handful are invariable neuter pronouns that stand alone and never change: tudo, nada, algo, alguém, ninguém. And the single biggest thing for an English speaker: Portuguese is a double-negative language. “I don’t want anything” is Não quero nada - literally “I don’t want nothing” - and that stacked negation is correct, obligatory, and everywhere.

The rule

Two families

1. Variable (agree in gender and number): algum, nenhum, todo, muito, pouco, tanto, outro, certo, vário(s). These sit before a noun like adjectives (alguns dias, muitas casas) and can also stand alone as pronouns (Quero outra).
2. Invariable neuter pronouns (one fixed form, no noun attached): tudo (everything), nada (nothing), algo (something), alguém (someone), ninguém (nobody). They point at unspecified people or things in the abstract, and they are always grammatically third-person singular.

Agreement, and the muito trap

A variable indefinite copies its noun’s gender and number: muito tempo, muita água, muitos amigos, muitas amigas. But the very same word muito / pouco is also an adverb, and as an adverb it is frozen - it never agrees. So when muito quantifies a noun it agrees (muitos erros), but when it modifies an adjective or a verb it does not: ela é muito simpática (not muita simpática), elas trabalham muito. Getting this one distinction right removes the most common A2 slip in the whole topic.

The affirmative/negative pairs and where não goes

Each affirmative indefinite has a negative partner: algum <-> nenhum, alguém <-> ninguém, algo / alguma coisa <-> nada, sempre <-> nunca, também <-> também não / nem. The placement of the negative word decides whether you also need não:

• Negative word after the verb -> keep não before the verb: Não conheço ninguém. / Não tenho nenhum. / Não há nada.
• Negative word before the verb -> drop não (one negation is enough): Ninguém veio. / Nunca fumei. / Nada mudou.

Both patterns are single grammatical negatives in Portuguese; the “double” you see in Não quero nada is required, not a mistake to be corrected out.

todo vs tudo

todo is the variable adjective “all / every / whole” and agrees; tudo is the invariable pronoun “everything.” English “all/everything” collapses the two, so learners mix them. Also keep these apart:

• todo o dia = “the whole day”; todos os dias = “every day.” Singular noun with article = whole; plural noun with article = every.
• EP says toda a gente for “everybody” (Brazilian Portuguese prefers todo mundo).

cada, qualquer, ambos

• cada (“each”) is invariable and always takes a singular noun: cada dia, cada pessoa; “each one” is cada um / cada uma.
• qualquer (“any / whichever”) has the irregular plural quaisquer: qualquer pergunta -> quaisquer perguntas.
• ambos os / ambas as = “both”: ambos os irmãos, ambas as mãos.

algo vs alguma coisa

Both mean “something.” In European Portuguese alguma coisa is the everyday spoken choice (Queres alguma coisa?), while algo is slightly more formal or written. The negative of both is nada.

Forms & patterns

Variable indefinites - the four agreement forms:

nenhum is almost always used in the singular; the plurals nenhuns / nenhumas exist but are rare.

Invariable words:

Affirmative and negative partners:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Quero nada. -> Não quero nada. - when the negative word follows the verb, EP keeps não; the double negative is obligatory, not an error to remove.
• Ela é muita simpática. -> Ela é muito simpática. - before an adjective muito is an adverb and stays invariable; it agrees only when it quantifies a noun (muitas casas).
• Comi todo. -> Comi tudo. - “everything” is the invariable pronoun tudo; todo is the agreeing adjective (todo o bolo = the whole cake).
• Todos os dia / cada dias -> todos os dias / cada dia - todos takes a plural noun, cada always a singular one.
• qualquer perguntas -> quaisquer perguntas (or qualquer pergunta) - the plural of qualquer is the irregular quaisquer.
• Não tenho nenhuns livros. -> Não tenho nenhum livro. - nenhum is normally singular even where English says “any” with a plural.
• Alguém sabem -> Alguém sabe - alguém, ninguém, tudo, nada are third-person singular and take a singular verb, however plural the meaning feels.

Tips

• Sort every indefinite on sight into one of two bins: it either agrees (algum, nenhum, todo, muito, pouco, outro…) or it is a frozen neuter pronoun (tudo, nada, algo, alguém, ninguém). That single split settles most agreement questions.
• The muito test: is it in front of a noun (agree: muitos) or in front of an adjective / verb (freeze: muito)? One word, two jobs.
• Learn the negatives as pairs with their affirmatives (alguém/ninguém, algo/nada, sempre/nunca), then apply the placement rule: a negative word after the verb keeps não; before the verb, drop it.
• Keep tudo (everything) apart from todo (all / every / whole), and todo o dia (the whole day) apart from todos os dias (every day).
• alguém, ninguém, tudo, nada are all singular - the verb stays singular, and their negatives feed straight into the negation you met in Lesson 15.

In short

An adverb tells you how, when, where, how much or how certain: Ela conduz bem (“She drives well”), Chegámos ontem (“We arrived yesterday”), Está aqui (“It’s here”), É muito caro (“It’s very expensive”). The single fact to hold on to is that adverbs are invariable - they never agree with anything. This is the mirror image of the adjectives in Lesson 5: an adjective copies the noun’s gender and number (uma casa bonita), but the adverb attached to a verb or adjective is frozen (ela canta bem, eles cantam bem). English blurs the line because “fast”, “hard” and “early” work as both parts of speech; Portuguese keeps them apart, and the commonest A2 slip is using an adjective (which agrees) where an adverb (which cannot) belongs. Portuguese also leans heavily on locuções adverbiais - fixed multi-word phrases like às vezes and de repente - which in everyday speech are often more frequent than the single-word forms.

The rule

Adverbs of manner in -mente

The productive way to make a “how” adverb is the suffix -mente, the equivalent of English “-ly”. The recipe is exact:

1. Take the adjective’s feminine singular form.
2. Add -mente.

So rápido -> feminine rápida -> rapidamente; lento -> lenta -> lentamente; claro -> clara -> claramente. Adjectives with a single form for both genders just add the suffix directly: feliz -> felizmente, fácil -> facilmente, normal -> normalmente, frequente -> frequentemente.

Two things English speakers must not miss. First, the base adjective drops its own written accent when it takes -mente, because the stress moves onto the suffix: rápido -> rapidamente (no á), fácil -> facilmente, só -> somente, único -> unicamente, cortês -> cortesmente. Second, when you string two or more -mente adverbs together, only the last one keeps the suffix; the earlier ones stay as bare feminine adjectives: Falou clara e pausadamente (“He spoke clearly and slowly”), lenta mas seguramente (“slowly but surely”).

Not every adjective builds a -mente adverb. The two most important - bom and mau - do not: their adverbs are the irregular bem (“well”) and mal (“badly”), which is the next point.

bem / mal are adverbs; bom / mau are adjectives

This pair is the “good vs well” trap, and Portuguese is strict about it. Use the adjective (bom/boa, mau/má, agreeing) to describe a noun, and the adverb (bem, mal, invariable) to describe a verb:

• É um bom livro (a good book) but Ela escreve bem (she writes well).
• Foi uma má ideia (a bad idea) but Ele portou-se mal (he behaved badly).

Never say Ela escreve boa or Ele fala bom português - the verb takes bem: Ele fala bem português. As you saw in Lesson 5, bom/mau also have one-word comparatives (melhor, pior), and those same forms are the comparatives of bem/mal too (Lesson 18).

The classes of adverb

Adverbs sort into a handful of meaning groups. You already met most of these words in earlier lessons; here they are gathered by function:

• Manner (modo): bem, mal, assim (“like this”), depressa (“fast”), devagar (“slowly”), and all the -mente adverbs.
• Time (tempo): hoje, ontem, amanhã, agora, já (“already / now”), ainda (“still / yet”), sempre, nunca, cedo (“early”), tarde (“late”), logo (“soon / later”).
• Place (lugar): aqui / cá (“here”), aí (“there, by you”), ali / lá (“there”), perto, longe, dentro, fora, atrás, à frente, em cima, em baixo.
• Quantity / degree (quantidade): muito, pouco, bastante (“quite / enough”), demasiado (“too”), quase (“almost”), tão (“so”), mais, menos, and the colloquial EP intensifier imenso (“a lot”).
• Affirmation / negation / doubt: sim, também (“also”); não, nunca, também não (“not either”); talvez (“perhaps”), provavelmente, se calhar (“maybe”, very common in Portugal).

Degree adverbs, and the muito recap

Degree adverbs sit in front of the word they scale and stay invariable: muito caro, bastante longe, demasiado tarde, quase pronto. This is the muito distinction from Lesson 16: scaling an adjective or verb, muito freezes (elas são muito simpáticas, trabalham muito); it agrees only in front of a noun (muitas casas). The EP flavour word imenso works the same way - as an adverb it means “a lot” and never agrees: Gostei imenso do filme.

Adverbial phrases (locuções adverbiais)

A locução adverbial is a fixed group of words that works as one adverb. Portuguese uses these constantly, and many everyday meanings have no single-word adverb at all - you must learn the phrase. They very often replace a -mente form: com frequência = frequentemente, de certeza = certamente. A high-value starter set:

às vezes (sometimes), de vez em quando (from time to time), de repente (suddenly), por acaso (by chance), de propósito (on purpose), ao mesmo tempo (at the same time), de novo (again), em breve (soon), à vontade (freely, at ease), pouco a pouco (little by little), com certeza / de certeza (certainly), se calhar (maybe). Note that the EP se calhar takes an ordinary indicative verb - Se calhar vou (“Maybe I’ll go”) - which makes it the easy, everyday alternative to talvez.

Where the adverb goes

Word order is freer than in English, but the defaults are:

• Manner adverbs come after the verb (and after its object): Ela fala português fluentemente, Ele conduz bem.
• Degree adverbs come immediately before the word they scale: muito rápido, quase sempre, demasiado cedo.
• Sentence adverbs (a comment on the whole clause) go at the front, set off by a comma: Felizmente, ninguém se magoou (“Fortunately, nobody got hurt”), Provavelmente, está fechado.
• Time and place adverbs are flexible - front or end: Hoje não trabalho or Não trabalho hoje. The negation adverb não is the fixed exception: it always sits directly before the verb (Lesson 15) - Não sei, Ainda não chegaram.

Forms & patterns

Building -mente adverbs (from the feminine, dropping any written accent):

The adverb classes, with core members:

High-frequency adverbial phrases:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Ele fala bom português. -> Ele fala bem português. - a verb takes the adverb bem, not the adjective bom; bom/mau describe nouns, bem/mal describe actions.
• Ela escreve boa. -> Ela escreve bem. - the adverb is invariable and cannot agree; there is no feminine “boa” of an action.
• rápidamente, facilmente with the accent kept -> rapidamente, facilmente - the base adjective loses its written accent when -mente is added.
• claramente e pausadamente -> clara e pausadamente - with two coordinated adverbs, only the last keeps -mente.
• Elas trabalham muitas. -> Elas trabalham muito. - modifying a verb, muito is a frozen adverb; it agrees only in front of a noun (muitas horas).
• de repentemente -> de repente (or repentinamente) - it is a fixed phrase; do not glue -mente onto it.
• Talvez sim. is fine, but Talvez vou with an ordinary verb is shaky - EP prefers either Se calhar vou (indicative) or talvez with the mood you meet in Lesson 34; at this stage, reach for se calhar.
• Não também gosto. -> Também não gosto. (“I don’t like it either”) - the negative pair is também não, in that order.

Tips

• Build every -mente adverb from the feminine adjective and then erase the base’s accent: rápida -> rapidamente, fácil -> facilmente. Do it in two steps and you will never misspell one.
• Tattoo the pair bem / mal for verbs and bom / mau for nouns. “How does she sing?” -> Canta bem, never canta boa.
• Memorize a dozen locuções adverbiais early (às vezes, de vez em quando, de repente, ao mesmo tempo, se calhar) - in real EP speech they come up more than the tidy -mente forms.
• Default placement: manner after the verb, degree before the word, sentence comment at the front with a comma. When in doubt, put a time or place adverb at either end - both are fine.
• For “maybe” in everyday European Portuguese, use se calhar with a normal verb and sidestep the subjunctive until Lesson 34.
• Adverbs compare just like adjectives (Lesson 18): mais depressa (do) que, tão bem como, and the irregular melhor / pior double as the comparatives of bem / mal - Ela cozinha melhor do que eu.

In short

Portuguese has no “-er / -est” endings. Every comparison is built with a little word in front of the adjective and, where needed, one after it: mais … (do) que for “more … than”, menos … (do) que for “less … than”, and tão … como for “as … as”. The relative superlative - “the most / least … in” - is just the definite article plus mais / menos plus de: a cidade mais bonita de Portugal. Four everyday adjectives - bom, mau, grande, pequeno - have one-word comparatives (melhor, pior, maior, menor) that you must never build with mais. And “very / extremely”, with nothing to compare against, is the absolute superlative: muito caro or, in a single word, caríssimo.

The rule

More, less, and as … as

Three frames cover almost everything, and the adjective in the middle still agrees with its noun (Lesson 5):

• Superiority - mais + adjective + (do) que: Ela é mais alta do que o irmão (“She is taller than her brother”). The do is optional - mais alta que o irmão is equally correct - but do que is the fuller, very common European form.
• Inferiority - menos + adjective + (do) que: Este telemóvel é menos caro do que aquele.
• Equality - tão + adjective + como: O João é tão alto como o pai (“as tall as”). (quanto can replace como: tão alto quanto o pai.)

To compare quantities of a noun, swap tão for tanto, which then agrees: tanto / tanta / tantos / tantas … como - Tenho tanto trabalho como tu, Não há tantas casas como antes. To compare how much two people do something, use tanto como after the verb: Ele trabalha tanto como eu.

The four irregular comparatives

These are the ones that trip everyone. Never say mais bom or mais grande:

• bom -> melhor (“better”), mau -> pior (“worse”)
• grande -> maior (“bigger”), pequeno -> menor (“smaller”)

The same melhor / pior also serve as the comparatives of the adverbs bem and mal: Ela canta melhor do que eu, Hoje sinto-me pior.

Two European-Portuguese points. First, grande has only maior - there is no mais grande at all. But pequeno has two accepted comparatives: menor and, commonly in Portugal, mais pequeno - Este quarto é mais pequeno do que o outro is perfectly standard EP. Second, muito and pouco shorten too: their comparatives are simply mais and menos (mais dinheiro, menos tempo).

The relative superlative: the most … in

To say something is the most or least within a group, put the definite article before mais / menos, and introduce the group with de - not em and not que:

• Lisboa é a cidade mais bonita de Portugal.
• É o aluno menos aplicado da turma. (de + a = da, Lesson 2.)

When a noun is present, the adjective keeps its normal after-the-noun slot and the article does the superlative work: o rapaz mais alto da turma, os dias mais curtos do ano. The four irregulars use their one-word forms here too: o melhor restaurante da cidade, a pior nota da turma, o maior país da Europa.

The absolute superlative: very / extremely

This one makes no comparison - it just cranks the adjective up. Two routes:

1. muito + adjective: muito caro, muito interessante.
2. The suffix -íssimo, which agrees like any -o adjective (-íssimo / -íssima / -íssimos / -íssimas). Drop the final vowel and add it: caro -> caríssimo, bonito -> bonitíssimo, lento -> lentíssimo. Words ending in a consonant just take it: feliz -> felicíssimo, fácil -> facílimo. Watch the c/qu spelling reflex from the reading & pronunciation guide: rico -> riquíssimo (c -> qu keeps the /k/ sound), and muito itself -> muitíssimo.

A handful of high-frequency adjectives borrow a learned (Latin-based) absolute superlative instead of taking -íssimo: bom -> ótimo, mau -> péssimo, grande -> máximo, pequeno -> mínimo. The full -íssimo system (and the affectionate -inho diminutive alongside it) is drilled in Lesson 41.

Comparing amounts: multiples and fractions

• Multiples: o dobro (double), o triplo (triple), o quádruplo - joined with de: Paguei o dobro do preço normal, Ganha o triplo do que eu ganho.
• Fractions: metade (half), um terço (a third), um quarto (a quarter), dois terços: Comi metade do bolo, Um terço dos alunos faltou.
• Two handy patterns: cada vez mais / menos (“more and more / less and less”) - Está cada vez mais frio - and quanto mais …, mais … (“the more …, the more …”) - Quanto mais estudo, mais aprendo.

Forms & patterns

The comparative frames:

The irregular set, across the degrees:

Examples

Common mistakes

• mais bom, mais grande -> melhor, maior - these four adjectives (bom, mau, grande, pequeno) have one-word comparatives; never build them with mais. (mais pequeno, though, IS correct in Portugal.)
• o mais alto na turma / o mais alto que a turma -> o mais alto da turma - the group after a superlative is introduced by de (da, do, dos, das), never em or que.
• tão alto que o pai -> tão alto como o pai - “as … as” is tão … como, not tão … que; the que frame belongs only to mais / menos.
• tão dinheiro como tu -> tanto dinheiro como tu - before a noun you compare with tanto (which agrees), not tão, which only modifies adjectives and adverbs.
• mais melhor, mais pior -> melhor, pior - the one-word form is already comparative; to intensify it, say muito melhor, bastante pior.
• o mais bom restaurante -> o melhor restaurante - the irregular form carries into the superlative too.
• muito caríssimo -> caríssimo (or muito caro) - pick one route to “extremely”; do not stack muito on top of an -íssimo.

Tips

• Think analytically: Portuguese never welds an ending onto the adjective the way English adds “-er / -est”. It puts mais or menos in front and, when needed, (do) que behind.
• Burn the four irregulars into memory as a block - melhor, pior, maior, menor - because they are among the commonest words you will say, and mais bom sounds badly wrong to a native ear.
• Keep the two little words apart: comparison takes (do) que (“than”); the superlative group takes de (“in / of”). Mais alto do que ele, but o mais alto da turma.
• -íssimo is your one-word “very”: filme ótimo, cansadíssimo, caríssimo. Use it for emphasis in speech, and remember it always agrees with the noun.
• In Brazil: the grammar is identical, but usage leans the other way on one point - Brazilians strongly prefer menor and rarely say mais pequeno, which is the everyday form in Portugal. Both are correct; match the norm you are learning.
• The -íssimo absolute superlative and the -inho / -ão size-and-affect suffixes form one system - see Lesson 41 for the full picture.

In short

The imperative is how you tell someone to do something - give an order, an instruction, an invitation, a piece of advice: Fala mais devagar (“Speak more slowly”), Entre, por favor (“Come in, please”), Vira à direita (“Turn right”). Which form you use depends on who you are talking to - the informal tu or the polite você / o senhor - exactly the address split of Lesson 3. The good news is that both forms are built from verbs you already know: the tu command is just the “he/she” present-tense form with nothing added (ele fala -> fala!), and the você command is the eu present form with its ending swapped. This lesson covers only the affirmative (“do it!”); the negative (“don’t do it!”) and its full system are built in Lesson 33.

The rule

Two commands for two ways of addressing people

Portuguese has no single “you”-command. You pick the form that matches how you address the person (Lesson 3):

• tu - informal, one person you are close to (a friend, a child, family).
• você / o senhor / a senhora - polite or respectful, one person. It uses the third-person verb form, so grammatically it looks like “he/she”.
• vocês - the plural of both, for any group (EP has dropped the old vós command falai / comei outside prayers and set phrases).

The tu command: the “he/she” present form

To give an informal command, take the third-person singular present indicative (the ele / ela form from Lessons 6-8) and use it as is - drop the final -s of the tu form:

• tu falas -> Fala! , tu comes -> Come! , tu abres -> Abre!

That single rule also delivers most irregular commands, because they are simply the ele present form: ter -> tem, fazer -> faz, dizer -> diz (also dize), vir -> vem, pôr -> põe, ver -> vê, dar -> dá, ler -> lê. Two must be memorised: ser -> sê and ir -> vai.

The você command: eu form, swap the ending

For the polite command, start from the eu present form (Lessons 6-8), drop the -o, and add the opposite theme vowel:

• -ar verbs add -e: falo -> fale, entro -> entre, espero -> espere. Plural: -em (falem).
• -er / -ir verbs add -a: como -> coma, abro -> abra, parto -> parta. Plural: -am (comam, abram).

Because you start from eu, every irregular eu-stem is carried automatically: faço -> faça, digo -> diga, venho -> venha, ponho -> ponha, saio -> saia, peço -> peça, durmo -> durma, ouço -> ouça. Only a handful of verbs whose eu form does not end in -o are irregular and must be learned: ser -> seja, estar -> esteja, ir -> vá, dar -> dê, saber -> saiba, querer -> queira.

Saying “let’s”: vamos + infinitive

The everyday EP way to say “let’s do X” is vamos + infinitive - no special form needed: Vamos comer! (“Let’s eat!”), Vamos embora! (“Let’s go!”), Vamos ver. (“Let’s see.”). A one-word nós command exists (comamos, partamos) but it is formal and rare in speech; vamos + infinitive is what people actually say.

Where the pronoun goes: attached after the verb

With an affirmative command the object or reflexive pronoun (Lesson 12) comes after the verb, joined by a hyphen - this is ênclise, the default position you will study fully in Lessons 29-31:

• Senta*-te**!* (“Sit down!”), Levanta*-te***, Diz*-me***, Dá*-me***, Chama*-lhe***.
• With você / vocês: Sente*-se***, Levantem*-se***, Diga*-me***, Dê*-me***.

Never front the pronoun in an affirmative EP command: it is Diga-me, not Me diga.

Softening the order: invitations and politeness

A bare imperative can sound blunt, so EP wraps it in courtesy words - por favor, se faz favor, faça (o) favor de + infinitivo - or uses set polite imperatives: Faça favor (“Please, go ahead”), Tenha um bom dia, Desculpe, Diga (“Yes? / Go on”). The imperative is also the normal mood for written instructions and recipes, where EP uses the você form: Descasque as batatas, corte-as e junte o sal.

Forms & patterns

Regular verbs, the two everyday address forms plus the plural:

The high-frequency irregulars:

Reflexive and object pronouns attach after the verb:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Comes a sopa! -> Come a sopa! - the tu command is the ele form; drop the -s of the present tu form.
• Fale mais devagar said to a friend -> Fala mais devagar - use the tu command for someone you address as tu; fale is the você form.
• Me diga / Te senta -> Diga-me / Senta-te - in an affirmative EP command the pronoun attaches after the verb with a hyphen, never before it.
• Vá said to a friend -> Vai - vai is the tu command of ir; vá is the você form (and sê vs seja work the same way).
• Falar mais alto! as a spoken order -> Fala / Fale mais alto! - the plain infinitive is not the normal spoken command; use the imperative form.
• Faça a janela (meaning “close”) -> Feche a janela - build the você command from the right verb’s eu form (fecho -> feche), not from fazer.
• Sente-te / Senta-se mixing forms -> keep one address: Senta-te (tu) or Sente-se (você), not a blend of the verb of one and the pronoun of the other.

Tips

• Two recipes cover almost everything: tu = the ele present form (fala, come, abre); você = the eu present form with the ending flipped (falo -> fale, como -> coma). Learn those and the short irregular list, and you can command any verb.
• Because the você form starts from eu, every stem-changing eu form comes along for free: faço -> faça, digo -> diga, venho -> venha, durmo -> durma. You are not learning new stems, just a new ending.
• For “let’s”, reach for vamos + infinitivo (Vamos ver, Vamos comer) - it is the natural EP choice and avoids the rare one-word form.
• Keep the pronoun after the affirmative verb: Senta-te, Diga-me, Levantem-se. This is the enclisis you will formalise in Lessons 29-31.
• Soften commands with por favor, se faz favor, or faça favor de + infinitivo so they do not sound abrupt - the imperative alone can feel curt.
• In Brazil the picture shifts: você is the default even among friends, so Brazilians use the tu-form words (fala, come) with você-level familiarity, and they place pronouns before the verb (Me diz, Se senta). European Portuguese keeps tu forms for tu and attaches the pronoun after - stick with the EP pattern here.

In short

The pretérito perfeito simples is the tense of what happened: a single, finished action, seen as a whole and done with. It is the past you reach for to tell a story or report your day - Ontem falei com o médico (“Yesterday I spoke to the doctor”). Building it from a regular verb is the same two-step move you learned for the present (Lesson 6): take the stem, add the ending. There are only three sets of endings, one per conjugation, and just two things trip English speakers up - the tu form has no final -s, and in European Portuguese the nós form of -ar verbs carries a written accent (falámos) that keeps it apart from the present.

The rule

The endings

Drop the infinitive ending to get the stem (falar -> fal-, comer -> com-, partir -> part-), then add:

• -ar verbs: -ei, -aste, -ou, -ámos, -aram
• -er verbs: -i, -este, -eu, -emos, -eram
• -ir verbs: -i, -iste, -iu, -imos, -iram

Unlike the present, the -er and -ir groups are not near-twins here: they share only the eu form (-i: comi, parti) and differ in every other person (comeste vs partiste, comeu vs partiu, comemos vs partimos, comeram vs partiram). And as always in European Portuguese, você, o senhor and ele/ela take the third-person singular form (falou, comeu, partiu), while vocês and eles/elas take the third-person plural (falaram, comeram, partiram).

Two forms that look like the present

This tense overlaps the present indicative in two spots, so context does the disambiguating:

• The nós form of -er and -ir verbs is spelled the same in both tenses: comemos and partimos are present and past. Only the time frame tells you which - Todos os dias comemos sopa (present) vs Ontem comemos sopa (past).
• For -ar verbs, European Portuguese avoids the clash with a written accent: the past nós form is falámos, chegámos, estudámos (open, stressed á), while the present is falamos, chegamos, estudamos. The accent is not decoration - it reflects the open vowel EP actually pronounces in the past, and the accented form is the European-Portuguese standard for marking the tense in writing. (Strictly, the Acordo Ortográfico of 1990 makes this accent optional, so falamos for the past is also permitted; but in EP the accented falámos is the recommended and near-universal written form, so write it.)

Verbs in -car, -gar, -çar

A small set of -ar verbs change their spelling in the eu form only, so that the consonant keeps its sound before the -ei ending (a spelling rule from the reading & pronunciation guide, not a real irregularity): c becomes qu, g becomes gu, and ç becomes c. Every other person is completely regular.

• ficar -> fiquei (but ficaste, ficou, ficámos, ficaram)
• chegar -> cheguei
• começar -> comecei
• pagar -> paguei, explicar -> expliquei, jogar -> joguei

What it is for

Use the pretérito perfeito simples for a completed action or event, however long it lasted, as long as you view it as finished: a single moment (Fechei a porta), a bounded stretch (Vivi cinco anos em Faro), or a chain of events in a narrative (Cheguei, paguei a conta e saí). It pairs naturally with time markers that close the action off: ontem, anteontem, na semana passada, no ano passado, em 2015, há dois dias, de repente.

Two boundaries worth flagging now. For description and background in the past - what things were like, what you used to do, an action still in progress - Portuguese uses a different past tense, the pretérito imperfeito (Lesson 22); the contrast between the two is drilled in Lesson 23. And note that this simple past also does the job of the English present perfect: “I have already eaten” is Já comi, not a ter + participle construction (that form exists but means something else - Lesson 43).

Forms & patterns

The endings, side by side:

The three model verbs in full:

The eu-form spelling shift of -car / -gar / -çar verbs:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Tu falastes / comestes / partistes -> falaste / comeste / partiste - the tu preterite ends in -ste with no final -s; adding one is a very common slip (and a Spanish habit).
• Nós falamos ontem. -> Nós falámos ontem. - in European Portuguese the past nós of an -ar verb is written with the acute (falámos, chegámos); drop it and the form is spelled exactly like the present falamos.
• eu ficei / começei -> fiquei / comecei - verbs in -car, -gar, -çar change their spelling in the eu form only, to keep the consonant sound before -ei.
• Eu tenho falado com ele ontem. -> Falei com ele ontem. - English “I have spoken (yesterday)” is the simple preterite in Portuguese; tenho falado is a different tense (Lesson 43) meaning a repeated or continuing action.
• eu comí / partí -> comi / parti - the eu form of -er and -ir verbs is a plain -i with no written accent.
• Quando era criança, comi muita sopa. -> … comia muita sopa. - a repeated or habitual past (“used to eat”) is the imperfeito (Lesson 22), not this tense; the pretérito perfeito simples is for a bounded, completed event.

Tips

• This is the tense of “what happened” - single finished actions and the events that move a story along. Anchor it with markers like ontem, na semana passada, em 2015, há dois dias, de repente.
• Learn the eu endings first (-ei for -ar, -i for -er/-ir), and watch the spelling of -car/-gar/-çar there: fiquei, cheguei, comecei, paguei.
• Two forms clash with the present, so read the time frame: -er/-ir nós (comemos, partimos) is identical in both tenses, and only the accent separates -ar falámos (past) from falamos (present).
• Never put a final -s on the tu form. Beyond that one trap and the spelling shifts, regular preterites have no stem changes at all.
• Portuguese uses this simple past where English often uses the present perfect: Já almoçaste? (“Have you had lunch?”), Perdi as chaves (“I’ve lost my keys”). Do not build a ter + participle form for these.
• The next lesson (22) covers the high-frequency irregular preterites (fui, fiz, tive, disse); everything here is the predictable majority.

In short

The regular preterite from Lesson 20 is the predictable majority; this lesson is the short list of verbs that break the mould - and they break it precisely because they are the ones you use most. Ser, ir, ter, estar, fazer, dizer, poder, querer, ver, vir, dar, saber, trazer, pôr, haver: you cannot tell a story about yesterday without them. The good news is that there are only about a dozen, they fall into a couple of tight patterns, and the endings on the tu, nós and eles forms are almost the same across the whole group. What you really have to memorise is the eu and the ele form of each - short, root-stressed shapes like fiz / fez, tive / teve, pude / pôde - and the rest of the row falls into place.

The rule

The strong-preterite pattern

Most of these verbs are “strong”: the stress sits on the stem, not on the ending, which is why the eu and ele forms come out short and usually carry no written accent. Take a special preterite stem and add:

• eu -e, tu -este, ele -e, nós -emos, eles -eram

Look at ter (stem tiv-): tive, tiveste, teve, tivemos, tiveram. The tu, nós and eles rows are perfectly regular on that stem (tiv-este, tiv-emos, tiv-eram); only the eu and ele forms need learning by heart (note the vowel flip tive -> teve). The same skeleton runs through estar (estive, esteve…), poder (pude, pôde…), saber (soube, soube…), haver (houve…), dizer (disse…) and trazer (trouxe…). Learn the pattern once and you have unlocked the tu/nós/eles forms of the entire family.

The verbs whose eu form does not end in -e

Three high-frequency verbs keep the strong tu/nós/eles endings but have an eu form ending in a consonant, and an ele form that either changes only the vowel (fez), matches the eu form exactly (quis), or adds an accent (pôs):

• fazer -> fiz / fez (fizeste, fizemos, fizeram)
• querer -> quis / quis (quiseste, quisemos, quiseram)
• pôr -> pus / pôs (puseste, pusemos, puseram)

The suppletive verbs: ser, ir, dar, ver, vir

A handful of the commonest verbs use forms that come from a different root entirely, so there is nothing to derive - just memorise them.

• ser and ir share one and the same preterite: fui, foste, foi, fomos, foram. Context alone tells the two apart: Fui médico (“I was a doctor”) vs Fui ao médico (“I went to the doctor”).
• dar borrows -er/-ir-style endings: dei, deste, deu, demos, deram.
• ver: vi, viste, viu, vimos, viram.
• vir: vim, vieste, veio, viemos, vieram.

Written accents that mark the past

Two third-person-singular forms carry a circumflex that is not decoration - for pôde it is the only thing separating the past from the present in writing, so it is obligatory:

• poder: pôde (past) vs pode (present) - Ontem não pôde vir / Hoje não pode vir.
• pôr: pôs (past) vs põe (present); the infinitive itself keeps its accent (pôr) to stay apart from the preposition por.

Everything else in the paradigm is accent-free: fez, fui, foi, quis, disse, veio take no written accent at all.

Forms that overlap - let context decide

Because the eu and ele endings are both a bare -e, five verbs have an identical eu and ele form: disse, soube, quis, trouxe, houve. The subject (or the pronoun eu / ele) is what tells you who. And one preterite form clashes with a present one, exactly as in Lesson 20: vimos is both “we saw” (the preterite of ver) and “we come” (the present of vir) - only context, and which verb it belongs to, tells them apart.

Forms & patterns

The core irregulars in full (European Portuguese; você / o senhor / ele share the third-person singular, vocês / eles the plural):

Two quick meaning notes on the table. Haver in the preterite is almost only used in the third person singular houve = “there was / there were” (Houve um problema). And saber in this tense often means “found out / learned”, not “knew”: Soube ontem que ele casou (“I found out yesterday that he got married”).

Examples

Common mistakes

• tu fizestes / tivestes / fostes -> fizeste / tiveste / foste - as with regular verbs (Lesson 20), the tu preterite never ends in -s; adding one is a persistent Spanish-influenced slip.
• ontem ele pode vir -> ontem ele pôde vir - the past third-person of poder takes a circumflex; without it you have written the present pode. The same holds for pôs vs põe.
• Mixing up vir and ver: vim / veio mean “came”, vi / viu mean “saw”. Vi-o na estação (“I saw him at the station”) is not Vim-no.
• eu fazi / dizi / tivi / sabi -> fiz / disse / tive / soube - these are strong preterites, so they do not take the regular -er endings; there is nothing to build, only to remember.
• Reading fui as only “went”: it is equally ser (“was”). A reunião fui longa is wrong for “the meeting was long” only because the subject is third person - it must be A reunião foi longa; but Eu fui professor (“I was a teacher”) is perfectly correct.
• trazi / trouxi -> trouxe - spelled with x, ending in -e, and identical in the eu and ele forms (Eu trouxe / Ele trouxe); the subject shows who brought what.
• nós fomos vs nós formos: the nós preterite of ser/ir is fomos (one r-less, short form); formos is a different tense you meet much later.

Tips

• Drill the eu + ele pair of each verb first (tive/teve, fiz/fez, pude/pôde, pus/pôs, vim/veio, fui/foi). Once those are automatic, the tu/nós/eles rows are the same -este / -emos / -eram endings on the same stem.
• Ser and ir have one preterite between them (fui, foste, foi, fomos, foram) - one of the highest-frequency verb forms in the language, and always sorted out by context.
• The only written accents in the whole set are pôde, pôs (and the infinitive pôr). Everything else - fez, quis, disse, veio, fui - is accent-free.
• Five verbs collapse their eu and ele forms into one shape (disse, soube, quis, trouxe, houve); do not hunt for a separate “he” form - let the subject carry the meaning.
• These fourteen or so verbs cover the overwhelming majority of irregular past forms you will ever need; there is no long tail to fear here, unlike the present tense.
• Watch the look-alike vimos: it is the preterite of ver (“we saw”) but the present of vir (“we come”); the form is identical, so context and the surrounding verb are what disambiguate.

In short

The pretérito imperfeito is the past tense of describing rather than reporting. The pretérito perfeito simples of Lessons 20-22 tells you what happened once and finished (li o livro, “I read the book”; ela chegou, “she arrived”). The imperfeito instead paints the scene around such events: what things were like, what used to happen, and what was going on at the time (chovia, “it was raining”; tinha dez anos, “I was ten”; íamos sempre à praia, “we always used to go to the beach”). English spreads this job over three shapes - “was/were doing”, “used to do”, and habitual “would do” - and Portuguese folds all of them into this single tense. Better still, it is almost entirely regular: two ending patterns and just four irregular verbs.

The rule

What the imperfeito is for

Four jobs cover nearly everything you will need at this level.

1. Habits and repeated actions in the past - English “used to” or habitual “would”:
   • Quando era criança, brincava na rua. - When I was a child, I used to play in the street.
   • Ao domingo levantávamo-nos tarde. - On Sundays we would get up late.
2. Description and background - states, weather, the time, age, looks, feelings:
   • A casa era grande e tinha um jardim. - The house was big and had a garden.
   • Estava sol e não havia ninguém na praia. - It was sunny and there was nobody on the beach.
   • Eram três horas. - It was three o’clock.
3. An action in progress, either interrupted by a completed event or running beside another:
   • Eu jantava quando o telefone tocou. - I was having dinner when the phone rang.
   • Enquanto ela lia, eu cozinhava. - While she was reading, I was cooking.
4. Two softer uses you will hear constantly in Portugal:
   • Polite requests, where the imperfeito replaces a blunt present: Queria um café, se faz favor. - I’d like a coffee, please.
   • Informal hypotheticals, where speech uses it instead of the conditional: Eu, no teu lugar, não dizia nada. - In your place, I wouldn’t say anything.

Rule of thumb: if English can say “used to X” or “was Xing”, the imperfeito is almost always right; if it says a plain “X-ed” that reports one finished event, you want the perfeito simples instead.

Building it - regular verbs

Take the infinitive, drop -ar / -er / -ir, and add one of just two ending sets. Crucially, -er and -ir share the same endings (-ia), so there are really only two patterns to learn:

• -ar verbs (falar): stem fal- + -ava, -avas, -ava, -ávamos, -avam.
• -er and -ir verbs (comer, partir): stem + -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam.

The nós form always carries a written accent on the stressed vowel - falávamos, comíamos, partíamos (recall the stress-and-accent rules from the reading & pronunciation guide). Forget it and you have misspelt the word.

The four irregular verbs

Only ser, ter, vir and pôr are irregular in the imperfeito - learn these four and you are done:

• ser -> era, eras, era, éramos, eram
• ter -> tinha, tinhas, tinha, tínhamos, tinham
• vir -> vinha, vinhas, vinha, vínhamos, vinham
• pôr -> punha, punhas, punha, púnhamos, punham

Note that ir is perfectly regular here (ia, ias, ia, íamos, iam), even though it was wildly irregular in the perfeito simples (fui, foi). Verbs built on the irregular four inherit their pattern: manter -> mantinha, conter -> continha, provir -> provinha, compor -> compunha, supor -> supunha.

Past progressive: estava a + infinitivo

To say “was doing” with extra stress on the action being under way, put estar into the imperfeito and keep the estar a + infinitivo frame from Lesson 9:

• Estava a ler quando chegaste. - I was (in the act of) reading when you arrived.
• O que estavas a fazer às oito? - What were you doing at eight?

The plain imperfeito (lia, fazia) already means “was reading / was doing”, so this longer form is optional emphasis, not a requirement.

Forms & patterns

Regular endings, side by side - notice the -er and -ir columns are identical:

The four irregular verbs in full:

Examples

Common mistakes

• A casa foi grande e teve um jardim -> A casa era grande e tinha um jardim - description of a past state takes the imperfeito, not the perfeito simples.
• Quando era criança, brinquei na rua (meaning a habit) -> brincava na rua - a repeated childhood habit is the imperfeito; brinquei would mean “I played once”.
• falavamos, comiamos, iamos -> falávamos, comíamos, íamos - the nós imperfeito always carries the written accent; dropping it is a spelling error.
• eu era built as seava/erava -> eu era - ser is irregular; there is no regular -ava form for it.
• eu tinha rendered as tia/tinhava -> eu tinha - ter is irregular too; the stem is tinh-, never ti- or tinhav-.
• punhava / ponhia -> punha - the imperfeito of pôr is punha, and compounds follow it (compunha, supunha).
• Quero um café as a polite order -> Queria um café - to sound courteous, swap the present for the imperfeito; the bare present can come across as abrupt.

Tips

• Test with English: if you can reword the sentence as “used to…” or “was …-ing”, the imperfeito fits; if it is a single finished event (”…-ed, and that was that”), use the perfeito simples of Lessons 20-22.
• You only ever memorise two regular patterns (-ava for -ar, -ia for both -er and -ir) and four irregular verbs (ser, ter, vir, pôr). Everything else is predictable.
• Keep the perfeito simples and the imperfeito as a team: the perfeito moves the story forward (a porta abriu-se), the imperfeito holds the backdrop still (estava escuro, ninguém falava). Lesson 23 drills the choice between them.
• For a softer, more Portuguese-sounding request, reach for queria, gostava de, podia, importava-se de rather than the present: Gostava de ver o menu., Podia abrir a janela?
• Say the nós forms out loud with the stress where the accent sits - fa-lá-va-mos, co-mí-a-mos - so the written accent becomes automatic.
• In Brazil: the past progressive is estar + gerund in the imperfeito - estava fazendo, estava lendo - exactly where European Portuguese uses estava a fazer, estava a ler.

In short

You now know how to build both past tenses: the pretérito perfeito simples of Lessons 20-22 (comi, fui, disse) and the pretérito imperfeito of Lesson 22 (comia, ia, dizia). The hard part is not forming them - it is choosing between them, because English uses one shape, the plain past (“ate”, “went”, “said”), for both. Portuguese splits that single English past into two jobs. The perfeito simples reports an event: something that happened and finished, a step that moves the story forward. The imperfeito paints the frame around events: what things were like, what used to happen, and what was going on. A typical past sentence needs both at once - Quando cheguei, estava a chover (“When I arrived, it was raining”): the arrival is perfeito, the rain is imperfeito. Get that division of labour right and your Portuguese past stops sounding translated.

The rule

The core opposition: event vs frame

Ask one question of every past verb: is this a single finished event, or the background around events?

• Perfeito simples = the camera clicks. A completed, bounded action, however long it lasted, seen as one whole: Ontem li um livro (“Yesterday I read a book” - start to finish). It answers “what happened (next)?”.
• Imperfeito = the camera pans. An ongoing state, a description, a habit, or an action still in progress, with no eye on where it ends: Naquele tempo lia muito (“Back then I used to read a lot”). It answers “what was it like?” or “what was going on?”.

The two work as a team. In a story, the imperfeito holds the scene still and the perfeito delivers the events that happen against it:

• Estava sol e as pessoas passeavam quando, de repente, um cão atravessou a estrada.
  • It was sunny and people were strolling when, suddenly, a dog crossed the road.
• The weather (estava), the strolling (passeavam) are the frame - imperfeito. The dog crossing (atravessou) is the event - perfeito.

The two English tests

Because English hides the split, translate it back into these two shapes:

1. If you can reword the English as “used to X” or “was Xing”, use the imperfeito.
2. If it is a single “X-ed, and that was that” - one finished event, often with “then”, “suddenly”, “finally” - use the perfeito simples.

• Every summer we went to Faro = “used to go” -> íamos (imperfeito, habit).
• That summer we went to Faro = one trip, done -> fomos (perfeito, event).

The interruption pattern

The commonest place both tenses meet in one sentence: a longer action in progress (imperfeito) is cut across by a completed event (perfeito).

• Eu dormia quando o alarme tocou. - I was sleeping when the alarm went off.
• O que fazias quando te telefonei? - What were you doing when I called you?

The background can be the plain imperfeito (dormia) or, for extra stress on “in the act of”, the estava a + infinitivo frame of Lesson 9 in the imperfeito (estava a dormir); either way, the interrupting event stays perfeito.

Sequence vs simultaneity

• A chain of completed events = perfeito after perfeito. Each verb pushes the story on:
  • Entrei, sentei-me e pedi um café. - I went in, sat down and ordered a coffee.
• Two ongoing actions side by side = imperfeito with enquanto (“while”):
  • Enquanto ela cozinhava, eu punha a mesa. - While she cooked, I set the table.

Same verb, two tenses, two meanings

A small group of very common verbs shift meaning with the tense - the imperfeito gives the ongoing state, the perfeito the moment it changed. These are worth memorising as pairs:

• Eu já a conhecia, mas só ontem soube o nome dela. - I already knew her, but only yesterday did I find out her name.
• Ele não quis assinar. - He refused to sign. (a decision, not a lingering wish)

Words that tip you off

Certain time expressions almost always call one tense:

• Perfeito (a point or a closed stretch): ontem, no ano passado, de repente, então, finalmente, uma vez, durante três anos. A counted, closed period is still perfeito: Vivi em Lisboa cinco anos (“I lived in Lisbon for five years” - and no longer).
• Imperfeito (repetition or no boundary): sempre, normalmente, todos os dias, às vezes, antigamente, naquele tempo, enquanto.

Forms & patterns

A decision table for the past verb in front of you:

The very same verb can flip: começar is perfeito when it names one moment (começou às nove) but imperfeito as a habit (começava sempre tarde, “it always used to start late”).

Examples

Common mistakes

• A casa foi grande e teve um jardim -> A casa era grande e tinha um jardim - a past description is the imperfeito, never the perfeito.
• Todos os dias comprei pão (a habit) -> Todos os dias comprava pão - “used to” is the imperfeito; comprei means “I bought (once)”.
• Ontem lia um livro (meaning “I read one, finished”) -> Ontem li um livro - a single completed event is the perfeito; lia would mean “was reading / used to read”.
• Eu conhecia o Rui na festa -> Eu conheci o Rui na festa - meeting someone for the first time is the event conheci; conhecia means you already knew him.
• Sabia a notícia ontem for “I found out” -> Soube a notícia ontem - the moment of learning is soube; sabia is the ongoing “already knew”.
• Quando cheguei, chovia wrongly “fixed” to choveu -> keep chovia - the rain is the frame around your arrival, not a new event; the arrival (cheguei) is the perfeito.

Tips

• Do the English test first, then choose: “used to / was -ing” -> imperfeito; “did once, done” -> perfeito. It resolves the great majority of cases before you touch the endings.
• Think of a film: the imperfeito is the set (weather, mood, setting); the perfeito is each action that advances the plot. A narrative alternates between the two.
• Length does not decide it: Estudei dez anos is still perfeito, one closed block. What counts is whether the action is seen as finished/bounded (perfeito) or open/ongoing (imperfeito).
• Memorise the meaning-shift pairs (sabia/soube, conhecia/conheci, queria/quis, podia/pude, tinha/teve); English speakers lose the most marks here, because English keeps the same word for both.
• Joined by quando, the usual split is imperfeito (background) + perfeito (event): Jantávamos quando eles chegaram. Swap the tenses and the meaning changes, so check which verb is the frame.

In short

The past participle is the -ed form of a verb - fechado (“closed”), escrito (“written”), feito (“done”). Portuguese builds it regularly for most verbs and irregularly for a short, high-frequency list you simply memorise. Its first job, the one this lesson teaches, is to work as an adjective of result: it describes the state a thing is in after something happened to it. Used that way it agrees in gender and number, exactly like the adjectives of Lesson 5 - a porta fechada, as janelas abertas. The one contrast to master is estar + participle (a state: A loja está fechada) against ser + participle (an action done to the subject: A loja foi fechada). English hides this behind a single “is closed”; Portuguese makes you choose.

The rule

Forming the participle

• -ar verbs take -ado: falar -> falado, fechar -> fechado, comprar -> comprado.
• -er and -ir verbs take -ido: comer -> comido, vender -> vendido, partir -> partido, dormir -> dormido.

A number of common verbs have an irregular participle that you must learn as a unit (they do not follow -ado / -ido): aberto, dito, escrito, feito, visto, posto, coberto, vindo, and a handful more in the table below. There is no shortcut - these are all everyday verbs, so they pay for themselves fast.

The participle as an adjective: it agrees

When the participle describes a noun’s state, it behaves like any adjective and takes the noun’s gender and number: um livro vendido, uma carta escrita, os documentos assinados, as portas fechadas. This is why the endings move: -o / -a / -os / -as.

estar + participle (state) vs ser + participle (action)

Both patterns pair a form of ser or estar with an agreeing participle, but they say different things:

• estar + participle = the resulting state, the condition something is in now. A loja está fechada. = the shop is (in a) closed (state). Nothing is said about who closed it.
• ser + participle = the action, the true passive - something is done to the subject. A loja foi fechada. = the shop was closed (someone closed it).

You already have the tenses you need for this from Lessons 8, 21 and 23. Match the verb to the moment:

• A porta está fechada. - it is closed right now (present of estar, a state).
• A porta estava fechada. - it was closed / stood closed (imperfeito of estar, an ongoing past state).
• A porta foi fechada. - the closing happened (PPS of ser, a completed event).

The full passive with an agent (foi fechada pela polícia) and the passive se belong to Lesson 39; here, just fix the estar-state versus ser-event split, because that is what English speakers get wrong.

Short vs long participles - a first look

A few verbs have two participles: a regular long one and a short irregular one. The short form is the one you use with estar and ser: A conta está paga (not pagada), A roupa está limpa (not limpada), A encomenda foi entregue (not entregada). The long form (limpado, entregado) goes with the auxiliary ter, which is the next lesson - though the very common pagar, ganhar and gastar use their short form (pago, ganho, gasto) with ter too in modern European Portuguese. Rule of thumb for now: with estar/ser, use the short form.

Forms & patterns

Regular participles:

Common irregular participles:

Agreement, and the state / action contrast:

Examples

Common mistakes

• A porta é fechada. -> A porta está fechada. - a current state uses estar; ser / foi describes the action of closing, not the condition.
• As janelas está abertas. -> As janelas estão abertas. - both the verb and the participle agree with the plural subject: estão + abertas.
• A janela está aberto. -> A janela está aberta. - the participle agrees in gender too; a feminine noun takes aberta.
• O trabalho está fazido. -> O trabalho está feito. - fazer has the irregular participle feito; there is no fazido.
• A conta está pagada. -> A conta está paga. - the short participle is pago / paga, and pagar uses it throughout, including with ter (tinha pago, Lesson 25).
• A encomenda foi entregada. -> A encomenda foi entregue. - same short-form rule: entregue, not entregada, after ser.
• A casa foi coberta de neve (for the state) -> A casa estava coberta de neve. - an ongoing state in the past is estava + participle, not the eventive foi.

Tips

• Build regular participles by ear: -ar verbs give -ado, -er / -ir verbs give -ido. Then drill the short irregular set (feito, dito, visto, posto, aberto, escrito) - they are all high-frequency.
• As an adjective the participle agrees: a porta fechada, as portas fechadas. If you can put an article and a noun around it, treat it like any adjective from Lesson 5.
• Decide estar vs ser by asking “state or event?”: está fechada = it is closed (condition); foi fechada = it got closed (something happened).
• Pick the tense from the moment: está (state now), estava (state in the past, imperfeito), foi (the event, PPS).
• When a verb has two participles, use the short one with estar / ser (está limpo, foi pago, foi entregue); the long form waits for ter in the next lesson.
• In Brazil: several short participles differ - EP says aceite where Brazil says aceito, and Brazilian usage leans more on the regular forms; keep aceite, entregue, ganho, gasto for European Portuguese.

In short

The pretérito mais-que-perfeito composto is the past before the past: an action already finished by the time another past event happened. It is English’s “had done” - Quando cheguei, o filme já tinha começado (“When I arrived, the film had already started”): my arrival is one past point, and the film’s starting sits before it. You build it exactly the way English does, with a two-part recipe: the auxiliary ter in the imperfeito (the tinha, tinhas, tinha… you met in Lesson 22) plus the past participle you just learned in Lesson 24. This is the first of several compound tenses, and they all follow the same shape - ter + participle - so the machinery you set up here is reused for the rest of the course.

The rule

How it is built

Two pieces, in this order:

ter in the imperfeito + past participle (the fixed -o form).

• Eu tinha falado. - I had spoken.
• Nós tínhamos partido. - We had left.
• Eles tinham feito tudo. - They had done everything.

The auxiliary carries all the grammatical work - person, number, and the past-of-the-past meaning - while the participle names the action and never changes: it stays in the masculine singular (feito, not feita/feitos), because with ter the participle is a frozen building block, not an agreeing adjective (Lesson 24). So Ela tinha escrito a carta, Elas tinham escrito as cartas - escrito throughout.

The irregular participles from Lesson 24 come straight back: tinha feito, tinha dito, tinha visto, tinha aberto, tinha posto, tinha escrito, tinha ganho, tinha pago.

A more formal variant: haver

Instead of ter you may use haver in the imperfeito (havia, havias, havia, havíamos, haviam) + participle: Eu havia falado, A cidade havia mudado muito. The meaning is identical; haver is simply more formal and more written. In everyday European Portuguese, ter is the default - use it unless you are writing in a deliberately literary register.

The auxiliary is always ter, never ser

English speakers rarely trip here, but speakers of French or Italian do: Portuguese has no “ser + participle” perfect. Movement and change verbs still take ter:

• Ela tinha ido embora. - She had gone away. (not era ida)
• O comboio já tinha saído. - The train had already left.
• Nós tínhamos chegado cedo. - We had arrived early.

Every compound tense in Portuguese is ter (or, formally, haver) + participle. There is no auxiliary choice to worry about.

What it is for

Use it for an action completed before a past reference point that is already in play - the “past behind the past”. It leans on words like já (“already”), ainda não (“not yet”), quando, antes, and it is the natural tense inside reported statements about earlier events:

• Quando o médico chegou, o doente já tinha adormecido. - When the doctor arrived, the patient had already fallen asleep.
• Ainda não tínhamos jantado quando eles telefonaram. - We hadn’t had dinner yet when they called.
• Ela contou-me que tinha vivido dois anos em Paris. - She told me she had lived in Paris for two years.

The reference point can be a verb in the perfeito simples (chegou, telefonaram) or just a time already understood from context; either way, the tinha action happened earlier.

Two neighbours not to confuse

• tinha feito vs fizera. There is a one-word, synthetic version of this tense - fizera, dissera, chegara - but in modern speech it is literary only; the compound tinha feito is what you say and write day to day. The simple form is a C1 topic (Lesson 55); learn the compound now and just recognise the other.
• tinha feito vs tenho feito. Tinha feito is “had done” (finished before another past). Tenho feito (Lesson 43) is “have been doing” - a repeated or continuing action up to now. Different auxiliary tense, different meaning: Ontem, às oito, já tinha comido (“by eight I had eaten”) vs Ultimamente tenho comido pouco (“lately I’ve been eating little”).

Forms & patterns

The auxiliary ter in the imperfeito:

A model verb in full - chegar (to arrive):