Portuguese grammar
The main rules of Portuguese, each on one short page with tables and examples you can listen to. Use it to look something up, or read it alongside the course: every chapter links to the pages it uses.
Start here: sounds and spelling
- The alphabet and pronunciationThe Portuguese alphabet, the Brazilian sounds that differ from English, nasal vowels, the written accents and where the stress falls.
- Brazilian and European PortugueseHow the Portuguese of Portugal differs from the Brazilian Portuguese taught in this course: sounds, tu and você, grammar, spelling and everyday words.
Beginner (A1)
- Articles and contractions: o, a, no, do, peloThe words for “the” and “a”, and how they join with em, de, a and por to make no, na, do, da, ao, à, pelo and pela.
- Nouns and adjectives: gender and pluralHow to tell whether a noun is masculine or feminine, how to make plurals, and how adjectives agree with nouns and where they go.
- NumbersNumbers from zero to a million, um / uma and dois / duas, prices in reais, phone numbers with meia, ordinals and how numbers are written.
- Possessives and demonstrativesMy, your, his and our (meu, seu, dele, nosso), this and that (este, esse, aquele, isso), and their contractions such as nesse and daquele.
- Present tense of irregular verbsThe present tense of the most common irregular verbs, such as ser, ter, ir, fazer and poder, and verbs that change a vowel in the eu form.
- Present tense of regular verbsThe present tense endings of regular -ar, -er and -ir verbs, which forms Brazilians use every day, and what the present is used for.
- Questions and negationHow to ask yes/no questions and questions with what, where and why, how to answer with the verb, and how to say no, nothing, never and nobody.
- Reflexive verbs: me chamo, me levantoVerbs used with me, te, se and nos, where these pronouns go in Brazil, in writing and in Portugal, and se for “each other”.
- Ser, estar and ficarPortuguese has two verbs for “to be”, and a third for where places are. Learn when to use ser, estar and ficar.
- Subject pronouns: eu, você, a gente…The words for I, you, he, she, we and they in Brazilian Portuguese: você and o senhor, nós and a gente, tu, and why Brazilians say the pronoun.
- Telling the time and datesHow to ask and tell the time, say at what time something happens, and talk about days of the week, months and dates.
- Ter and haver: have, there is, agoTer for “have” and, in speech, for “there is”; há in writing; há and faz for “ago” and “for”; and estar com for how you feel.
Elementary (A2)
- Comparatives and superlativesHow to compare things in Portuguese: mais… do que, tão… quanto, melhor, pior, maior, menor, o mais… and the ending -íssimo.
- Estar + gerund and other verb phrasesEstar fazendo for what's happening now, and the verb phrases acabar de, voltar a, começar a, parar de, ficar, andar and vir + gerund.
- Object pronouns and where they goMe, te, o, a, lhe, nos: what Brazilians say, what they write, and where the pronoun goes in Brazil and in Portugal.
- The future: vou fazer and fareiThe spoken future with ir + infinitive, the present for plans, the simple future (farei) in writing and forecasts, and será que for wondering.
- The imperativeHow to tell someone to do something in Portuguese: the standard forms (fale, vá, faça), the everyday spoken forms (fala, vai), negatives and pronouns.
- The imperfect (pretérito imperfeito)The past tense for habits, descriptions and background: its forms, how it differs from the preterite, and its use for polite requests.
- The preterite (pretérito perfeito)How to form the preterite of regular and irregular verbs, and why it covers both “I did” and “I have done” in Portuguese.
Intermediate (B1)
- If-clauses: seThe types of se sentence: real possibilities (se chover), unreal situations (se eu tivesse), the unreal past (se eu tivesse sabido) and mixed forms.
- Por and paraWhen to use por (pelo, pela) and para (pra, pro): purpose and destination, cause and route, exchange, and common fixed phrases.
- Relative pronounsHow to join sentences with que, quem, o que, onde, o qual and cujo, and why the preposition goes before the relative pronoun.
- Reported speechHow to report what someone said with disse que: tense changes, questions with se, requests with pedir que, and words for time and place.
- Tenho feito and tinha feitoParticiples, the pluperfect (tinha feito), the literary simple pluperfect (fizera) and tenho feito, which is not the English present perfect.
- The conditional (futuro do pretérito)How to form the conditional (falaria, faria) and use it for polite requests, advice and unreal results, and how speech often uses the imperfect instead.
- The future subjunctiveThe Portuguese future subjunctive (se eu tiver, quando você puder): how to form it and when to use it after se, quando, assim que and quem.
- The imperfect subjunctiveForms like tivesse, fosse and pudesse, and their uses: unreal se clauses, the sequence of tenses, como se, quem dera and e se…?
- The passive and seThe passive with ser (foi construído), estar + participle for results, passive and impersonal se (vende-se), and impersonal eles, você and a gente.
- The personal infinitiveThe Portuguese infinitive with personal endings (para nós falarmos, antes de eles saírem) and how it replaces que + subjunctive.
- The present subjunctiveHow to form the present subjunctive (fale, faça, seja) and when to use it: doubt, feelings, wishes, advice, tomara que, para que, and tenha feito.
Upper intermediate (B2)
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