At first glance, ter looks simple enough – it usually translates to ‘to have’ in English. However, ter is one of the most important verbs in Brazilian Portuguese and it shows up everywhere. Once you understand how it works, a lot of everyday language will become much easier. Conjugating ter in the present tense First, […]
The verb ter (‘to have’) Read More »
When travelling around Brazil, there are three verbs you’ll use all the time – ir (to go), vir (to come) and chegar (to arrive). Whether you’re navigating a bus station, meeting friends, or just explaining your plans, these verbs are essential tools for every traveller. Ir (to go) – movement away from where you are:
This page outlines the use of the simple past tense in Brazilian Portuguese. The simple past tense is also called the preterite, or pretérito perfeito (past perfect) tense. There are in fact several ways to refer to something that happened in the past in Brazilian Portuguese. The simple past tense is used to refer to
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Last week, I purchased a Collins bilingual Portuguese/English dictionary from a charity shop. Buying a physical dictionary felt a bit like going back in time to when I was at school in the 1990s. Until now, I’ve been using Google Translate to translate words and phrases from Portuguese into English. I’ve used bilingual dictionaries in
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Unlike regular verbs, irregular verbs in Brazilian Portuguese don’t follow typical patterns of conjugation. Some of the most frequently used verbs in Brazilian Portuguese are irregular and need to be memorised. See below for conjugations of some frequently used irregular verbs in the present tense in Brazilian Portuguese: Ter (to have) Eu tenho Ele/Ela tem
Common irregular verbs in Brazilian Portuguese Read More »
This page lists common regular verbs in Brazilian Portuguese and examples of regular verb conjugations in the present tense. Along with nouns, verbs make up the main parts of a sentence. Having verbs in your vocabulary will enable you to build sentences and communicate clearly. A number of websites offer tools to help you conjugate
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This page outlines the use of object pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese. Object pronouns help to avoid unnecessary repetition of nouns, allowing language to flow more easily. The object of a sentence is the noun that receives the action, for example, in the sentence, “Helen emailed Mark”, Mark is the recipient of the action and is
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This page outlines use of demonstratives in Brazilian Portuguese. Demonstratives are words used to point to, or to draw attention to people or things. In Brazilian Portuguese, demonstratives must agree in gender (masculine, feminine or neutral), number (singular or plural) and in relative distance to the thing that is being pointed to. Importance of distance
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This page explains the use of prepositions and contractions in Brazilian Portuguese. Prepositions come before a noun or pronoun and are used to show where or when something is in relation to something else. For example, words such as ‘in’, ‘on’ and ‘at’ indicate where an action is taking place e.g. at the beach. Other
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This page outlines use of grammatical gender in Brazilian Portuguese. Like other Romance languages including French and Italian, Brazilian Portuguese has grammatical gender, which means that most nouns are either masculine or feminine. Other words including pronouns and adjectives will change their endings to agree with the noun they are referring to: my house is
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