When to use the Portuguese Reflexive

You use the Portuguese Reflexive when you want to be clear that you're talking about yourself or, herself, themselves etc.

When we say The Portuguese Reflexive, we're really talking about those pronouns that get added right before a verb. These are called Reflexive Pronouns:

A verb becomes reflexive when it's used to talk about doing something to oneself, such as seating one's self at the table or waking one's self up. In these cases, the subject and object of the sentence are the same. *But you don't need to think about subjects and objects! You just need to recognize when a sentence is expressing "self".

It's usually obvious from the context that you are, for example, washing yourself, dressing yourself or injuring yourself but here's the thing you need to always remember: PORTUGUESE IS A VERY PRECISE LANGUAGE. It even has special verb tenses and rules to let people know when you're speaking hypothetically (the subjunctive), and when you're giving a command (the imperative)!

Portuguese is a very CLEAR and unambiguous language. That's also what makes it difficult to learn.

So, the Reflexive pronouns make it super-clear that the action is being done to one's self.

Let's start the day:

A Portuguese speaker would argue that (1) you could have woken someone else up!; (2) you could be talking about getting someone else out of bed!!; (3) you could be having way too much fun and were actually dressing someone else!!!

Let's use the Portuguese Reflexive and be clear about everything:

The bottom line is this: You can get by without using reflexive pronouns but if you want to speak the language correctly and with the precision it was built for, learn when to use the Portuguese Reflexive.

It really is just a matter of recognizing that you need to include myself or yourself, ourselves, themselves etc. When you say for example, "I injured myself". It would be pretty silly to say, "She injured." Other examples are not so clear:

Almost any verb can be used reflexively. Whenever the subject is receiving and doing the action at the same time, it's reflexive. To make a verb reflexive just add a me or se to say myself (me), or yourself, himself, herself (se).

More, more, more Portuguese Reflexive examples!

This one's a bit dangerous but can be useful:
ferrar-se. » offensive « see link.

You will naturally develop a feel for when to use the reflexive. This will happen naturally, without having to stop and think about it.

Sim!
The ones above are almost always used reflexively -- so, please learn them first. But know that pretty much any verb can be used reflexively. Here are some less obvious ones:

falar » Eu me falei » I told myself.

ensinar » Você se ensinou? » Did you teach yourself? » Sim, eu me ensinou tudo!

transformar » ela se transformou em modelo. » She made herself into a model.

I can't think of any way to use for example chover, morar, dançar (dancing with myself?), chegar, ir, trabalhar... Can you?

Want to see all the possibilities? Let's do one verb.

Reflexive Pronouns: levantar-se

Or rather:
Whenever the subject is receiving and doing the action at the same time, it's a reflexive verb.

It's not all that complicated!