The Portuguese Imperative

The Portuguese Imperative can be confusing! Brazilians simply do not use the imperative in a consistent way! There is however, a method to the madness. Let me explain. The conjugation of the imperative (used when giving a command) is the same as the present tense WHEN using the informal “tu” form. In other words…

Read more...

I can hardly wait.

There are 3 ways that Brazilians use to say that something hard to wait for. The most common is with “mal posso esperar” – “badly able to wait” (literally). We usually say “I can hardly wait” and Brazilians say, “Eu mal posso esperar”.

Read more...

Portuguese verb DAR – 7 ways to use it

The Portuguese verb DAR is a shape-shifter. When combined with other wordfs it can take on meanings like: working out, able to, worth it, can & cannot. We’ll dive into its multifaceted meanings, from giving luck to taking charge. Explore 7 uniquely useful ways DAR adds life and detail to what you want to say.

Read more...

tudo vs. todo

TUDO in Portuguese is used when talking about non-specific things. So for example when you say “tudo bem” you’re saying, “everything’s fine / all is well”. Use TODO & TODA when you want to get more specific about things. For example, when saying something like, “I like to see here every day before going to work”…

Read more...

Você tem certeza?

Você tem certeza… ? Brazilians love a sure thing. They are a positive people. To be sure about something is instrinsically optimistic and Brazilians love it. Let’s learn the every-day phrases that they use to talk about sureness and certainty.

Read more...

Lá in Portuguese

Lá in Portuguese is actually used in many different ways in day-today conversation. To Brazilians it’s much more than just, “there”! Let’s look at the most common examples and how “lá” gets incorporated into some of the most iconic Portuguese expressions.

Read more...

Portuguese Articles: the The

The first thing that struck me as wrong with the use of o and a for THE. One letter? I really wanted at least an “el” or, “la”. Portuguese Articles (called: definite articles) are actually super-practical. Two immediate and big payoffs: (1) Most nouns that end in “o” take the “o”article. Most “a” ending words use “a” for “the”. (2) You can also combine…

Read more...

the Preterit Indicative ~ar verbs

The Preterit Indicative is sometimes called “the simple past tense” (or, the preterit). It’s the clearest past tense in Portuguese because It describes action that is over and done. Simple! Use it to say things like: I played soccer yesterday; Did she go to the club with you?; I liked the movie a lot — Don’t use it to say things like: If I were feeling better I’d go too; I was taking a shower when you called.

Read more...

the Portuguese infinitive

In English, the infinitive form is “to” + the verb. Like this: to dance, to kiss, to spend etc. The Portuguese infinitive is just the verb itself: falar, comer, dormir etc. There’s no need to add a “to”. Every verb is born in its infinitive beauty self-contained and ready for use.

Read more...

GOSTAR

GOSTAR is obviously going to be one of your top-10m verbs that you use. There are two aspects of it that you need to be aware of to use it right: (1) the “de” that always (always) follows gostar; (2) the way that Brazilians actually say, “I like this and that” using the PAST tense rather than the present. In this post we’re going to look at the most common ways you’ll hear GOSTAR used, and learn how to use it effectively.

Read more...

Portuguese Contractions

The 3 most common Portuguese contractions are: (1) from em: no, na (2) from de: do, da (3) from a: ao, à. Once you know these 3, all the others will make sense! The hardest part is just getting used to saying for example, “no” when you do not mean “não” – but rather: em + o (in the).

Read more...

Portuguese possessive pronouns

Mine, Yours, His &; Hers The words that we use to convey POSSESSION are pretty simple because all objects are treated as gender-neutral. In Portuguese of course, there are always two options: the masculine and the feminine. These are called possessive pronouns and they are going to test the limits of your patience until you…

Read more...

the Future Subjunctive

Use the Future Subjunctive to talk about future events that are UNSURE to happen. The words IF and WHEN usually often trigger this tense. For example: Quando você chegar no Brasil, me ligue! This is likely to happen, but NOT 100% certain. Notice that the conjugation is simply the INFINITIVE form of the verb!

Read more...

the Present Subjunctive

Using the Present Subjunctive Portuguese uses the Subjunctive mood to indicate something is uncertain to happen or to have occurred. There are 3 different degrees of uncertainty: (1) extremely unlikely, (2) plausible, (3) likely. The Present Subjunctive is used for case (2): actions that are plausible, yet have not yet occurred.

Read more...

the Imperfect Indicative

In Portuguese, there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past, each with varying shades of meaning. Verb tenses! The Past Imperfect – officially called the Imperfect Indicative (o Pretérito Imperfeito), is used when talking about continuous or ongoing action in the past. Something that used to occur or, would always occur….

Read more...

por acaso & de propósito

por acaso » by chance Simônimos » inesperadamente, acidentalmente, casualmente, aleatoriamente, arbitrariamente Exemplo: Encontrei meus primos no festival por acaso. Não tínhamos combinado nada. » I met my cousins at the festival by chance. We hadn’t arranged anything. de propósito » on purpose Simônimos » deliberadamente, intencionalmente Exemplo: O propósito da vida é seguir a…

Read more...

The Portuguese JEITO

What is the Portuguese JEITO? It’s just an expression: JEITO = way, as in: let’s find a way. It’s somewhat notorious because Brazil has been known as the place where anything is possible. This comes mostly from the recent past in which one could for example, buy their way into a green card, bribe someone…

Read more...

Imperfect Subjunctive + Conditional

In the previous post we talked about this verb tense — the imperfect subjunctive, as well. So many of you have asked to see even more examples of this super-useful grammar trick so: aqui estão! (here they are!) the Imperfect Subjunctive is insanely great. Even better with the Conditional! And BTW, only language professors need…

Read more...

the Portuguese Subjunctive

The subjunctive mood has been known to break students. Every serious Portuguese student runs straight into it. Some get hurt. Some get scared. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Portuguese Subjunctive is actually a rose with thorns. It’s a beautiful part of the language that should be embraced and used with style,…

Read more...