Learn about the Portuguese tenses
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Intro |
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| Michael: How many tenses are there in Portuguese? |
| Ana Clara: And how do they work? |
| Michael: At PortuguesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Consider the following situation: Sasha Lee is confused about the number of tenses in Portuguese. She asks a teacher, Lilian Lopes, |
| "How many tenses are there in Portuguese?" |
| Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Lilian Lopes: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Michael: "How many tenses are there in Portuguese?" |
| Lilian Lopes: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Michael: "There are three verb tenses." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In the conversation, Sasha Lee asks: |
| Ana Clara: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Michael: meaning: "How many tenses are there in Portuguese?", to which Lilian Lopes replies: "There are three verb tenses," or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Michael: The tense of a verb shows when the action happens, either in the past, which we call "preterit", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: pretérito |
| Michael: In the "present": |
| Ana Clara: presente |
| Michael: or in the "future": |
| Ana Clara: futuro |
| Michael: These are the three main verb tenses in Portuguese that we'll learn more about in this lesson. The present tense is used to show what a subject is doing or usually does. For example: |
| Ana Clara: Eu estudo português todos os dias. |
| Michael: "I study Portuguese every day.". In this example, the verb "to study", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: estudar |
| Michael: is conjugated for the first person of speech, "I," in the present tense, indicative mood: |
| Ana Clara: estudo |
| Michael: Portuguese verbs, in the infinitive form, end in either |
| Ana Clara: -AR |
| Michael: first conjugation verbs, |
| Ana Clara: -ER |
| Michael: second conjugation verbs or |
| Ana Clara: -IR |
| Michael: third conjugation verbs. There's an exception: the verb "to put", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: pôr |
| Michael: It belongs to the second conjugation, although it ends in |
| Ana Clara: -OR, |
| Michael: because its original form had |
| Ana Clara: -ER |
| Michael: instead— |
| Ana Clara: poer. |
| Michael: This applies to this verb and its related verbs, for example, "to compose": |
| Ana Clara: compor |
| Michael: However, these verbs that end in |
| Ana Clara: -OR |
| Michael: are irregular ones. In this lesson, we'll focus on regular verbs only. In the case of regular verbs, verbs with the same ending will follow the same conjugation pattern. As a rule, you'll remove the ending and add the ending for each person of speech for a certain verb tense—for example, for the present tense of the verb "to wake up", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: acordar |
| Michael: It ends in |
| Ana Clara: -AR |
| Michael: and is a regular verb. Thus, we remove the infinitive ending and add the ending for the person of speech that we want to talk about. For example, "I wake up early every day:" |
| Ana Clara: Eu acordo cedo todos os dias. |
| Michael: In this case, for the first person singular, "I", or: |
| Ana Clara: Eu |
| Michael: We added |
| Ana Clara: -O |
| Michael: to the verb stem, obtaining the conjugated verb in the present tense: |
| Ana Clara: acordo |
| Michael: If we'd like to say, instead: "We wake up early every day.", we'd use: |
| Ana Clara: Nós acordamos cedo todos os dias. |
| Michael: We added |
| Ana Clara: -AMOS |
| Michael: to the verb stem, obtaining the conjugated verb in the present tense for the first person plural, "we," so that the verb became: |
| Ana Clara: acordamos |
| Michael: In this lesson, we'll focus on the indicative verb mood only. The indicative mood states a fact and will have past ("preterit"), present, and future tenses. The examples we've just heard are in the present tense of the indicative mood. In Portuguese, there are different ways of expressing past actions. We'll focus on the "preterit," or: |
| Ana Clara: pretérito perfeito |
| Michael: The preterit tense of the indicative mood is used to express an event or action that happened and was completed at a specific time in the past. To form the preterit of regular verbs, we just need to add the preterit endings to the verb stem. So, for example, to say "I studied Portuguese yesterday:" |
| Ana Clara: Eu estudei português ontem. |
| Michael: We just need to add the ending "-EI" to the verb stem, which is the ending for the first person singular, "I," in the preterit of the indicative mood, so that we have: |
| Ana Clara: estudei |
| Michael: As the preterit expresses events or actions that were completed at a certain time in the past, it's common to use it with expressions that state that certain time period, for example: |
| Ana Clara: ano passado |
| Michael: "last year" |
| Ana Clara: ontem |
| Michael: "yesterday" |
| Ana Clara: semana passada |
| Michael: "last week". |
| Let's have a look at one more example: |
| Ana Clara: Eu terminei o curso de artesanato no ano passado. |
| Michael: "I finished the handicraft course last year." |
| Next, there's the future tense. Here, we'll focus on the indicative mood's "future," or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: futuro do presente— |
| Michael: literally: "future of the present", meaning the future tense. It is mainly used to talk about things that will happen in the future. To form the future of regular verbs, we'll add the endings to the verb in the infinitive form. So, for example, "to study": |
| Ana Clara: estudar |
| Michael: We'll add the first person plural ending |
| Ana Clara: -EMOS |
| Michael: to it to have it conjugated in the future tense for this person of speech ("we"): |
| Ana Clara: estudaremos |
| Michael: Let's have a look at an example sentence with it: |
| Ana Clara: Estudaremos juntas no próximo curso de francês. |
| Michael: "We'll study together in the next French course." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that Portuguese has three main verb tenses: past, present, and future. We've focused on the indicative mood (used to state a fact in either of these verb tenses) of regular verbs, studying the present, preterit, and future tenses. |
| Now, let’s look at some examples. Our first example is: |
| Ana Clara: Eu corro 5 km todos os dias de manhã. |
| Michael: "I run 5 km every day in the morning." In this case, the verb "to run", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: correr |
| Michael: is a regular verb of the second conjugation (ends in "-ER"). As we've seen, to form the present tense, we remove the infinitive ending ("-ER") and, in this case, add the present tense ending for the first person singular form, which is "-O", obtaining: |
| Ana Clara: corro |
| Michael: The next example is: |
| Ana Clara: Eu corri 10 km ontem. |
| Michael: "I ran 10 km yesterday." In the preterit tense, we also remove the infinitive ending of the verb ("-ER") and add the preterit tense ending, in this case, also for the first person singular form, which is "-I", obtaining: |
| Ana Clara: corri |
| Michael: The last example is: |
| Ana Clara: ela correrá |
| Michael: "she will run". In the future tense, we just need to add the ending to the verb in the infinitive form. In this case, for the third person singular form, which is "A with the acute accent" with the acute accent, obtaining: |
| Ana Clara: correrá |
| Expansion |
| Michael: We've studied the future tense of the indicative mood, focusing on its simple form. However, it also has a compound form, used to talk about future actions completed before another starts. It is formed with the auxiliary verb "to have", or in Portuguese: |
| Ana Clara: ter, |
| Michael: which will be conjugated in the future tense, plus a main verb in the participle. For example: |
| Ana Clara: Quando você chegar, eu já terei terminado a tarefa. |
| Michael: "When you arrive, I will already have finished the task.". In this example, our focus is on the part: "(...) I will already have finished the task.": |
| Ana Clara: (...) eu já terei terminado a tarefa. |
| Michael: In this case, the conjugation was used for the first person singular, "I": |
| Ana Clara: eu |
| Michael: Using the auxiliary verb "to have" conjugated in the future tense of the indicative mood: |
| Ana Clara: terei |
| Michael: plus the participle of the verb "to finish", which is: |
| Ana Clara: terminado. |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after Ana Clara focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee says "How many tenses are there in Portuguese?" |
| Ana Clara as Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ana Clara as Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Ana Clara as Sasha Lee: Quantos tempos verbais existem em português? |
| Michael: And do you remember how Lilian Lopes says "There are three verb tenses?" |
| Ana Clara as Lilian Lopes: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ana Clara as Lilian Lopes: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Ana Clara as Lilian Lopes: Existem três tempos verbais. |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: As practice makes perfect, you can look up more about Portuguese verbs in the lessons we recommended in the Lesson Notes PDF. The recommended lesson in the Grammar bank has a special table showing the present tense conjugation of regular verbs (of the first, second, and third conjugations) that will be very helpful to master Portuguese verbs! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Ana Clara: Até a próxima! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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