The Portuguese present indicative (“the present”) gets boring fast. To liven things up a bit, let’s take a look at the most common Present Tense irregular verbs. ✱Regular present tense verbs are here: ar-verbs, er-verbs, ir-verbs There are some patterns to these irregular conjugations, but not many. I think the best way to learn them…
Read more...Use I find the Portuguese Imperative pretty confusing! The Imperative is a mood, not a verb tense, btw. Verb tenses are the individual conjugations within a mood: eu falo, você fala, nós falamos ETC. A mood has tenses. The Portugues Imperative is a MOOD. Mood indicates the attitude of the speaker toward a subject. In…
Read more...When I last posted about the Preterit Indicative, it was all about regular verbs. Now let’s look at the most common IRREGULARs in this tense. » *regular verbs are here. The “simple past tense” (the Preterit Indicative) is used to talk about action that’s over and done – in the frame of your story: I…
Read more...In English, the infinitive form is just to + the verb: to dance, to kiss, to spend… I’m just going to sit here until this all makes good sense. The Portuguese infinitive is just the verb itself: falar comer dormir There’s no need to add a to. Every verb is born in its infinitive beauty….
Read more...The future subjunctive is used to talk about things that are uncertain to occur in the future. %%sep%% The words IF and WHEN usually trigger this tense.
Read more...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. Use this tense to talk…
Read more...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...Using the Imperfect 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 Imperfect Subjunctive is used for case (1): actions that are extremely unlikely to happen or to have happened. If I were…
Read more...Ter in the Future Tense The common way is to use the verb ir as a helper verb (the future tense with ir) Eu vou ter mais tempo amanhã. > I’m going to have more time tomorrow. Ele vai ter que correr. > He’s going to have to run. Você vai ter uma namorada nova….
Read more...Prerequisite Reading: Portuguese verb TER. Superpowers? Sim, TER has superpowers. Though these are considered advanced-level, any ambitious learner can start using them now! Just keep in mind that the conjugation of TER is very irregular. Let’s start with the most used: The Imperative of Ter You will hear these all_the_time: Tenha um bom dia! >…
Read more...In Portuguese, there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past – each with different shades of meaning. When you choose one Portuguese past tense over another, you’re letting people know more about the story you’re telling. Talking about the past is always an act of story-telling. The Preterit Indicative tense…
Read more...The Portuguese Present Progressive is one of the first conjugations you will learn, but many students are afraid to actually use it. I was too, until I could really hear/see someone using them! The clip below is an excerpt from a longer dialog that’s full of examples of verbs in this tense. The Present Progressive…
Read more...Forming the Conditional in Portuguese is the English equivalent of would or could. To a language instructor, this tense is known as “the future of the preterite”. We just call it, THE CONDITIONAL. Use it whenever you want to say would or could in the FUTURE (only). It’s not used for the past as we…
Read more...Eu tenho trabalhado, e você? And, what about you, what have you been up to? In english, the ‘been’ is a way of signaling that you’re talking about the past, about something that is ongoing. If you say for example. ‘Eu trabalhei’ it means that you worked and that it’s done. To talk about some action…
Read more...In Portuguese there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past, each with varying shades of meaning. The present perfect indicative (!) includes expressions like ‘I have been going out every night’. Use it when talking about action that has been happening (and still is).
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