Brazilian Portuguese Master Verb List

Portuguese Verbs

Brazilian Sayings • Ir • Fazer • Estar • Ver

1. Introduction

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A verb is an action or a doing word in a sentence. It is the most important word in a sentence that must always be present to complete an idea.

In Portuguese, the endings of verbs are more varied and there are more tenses available than in English. Therefore, Portuguese verbs are much more complicated than English verbs.

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2. Conjugation

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There are three conjugations, that is, three main verb groups in Portuguese.

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Remark: 

• It is very important to distinguish the ending of a verb because all regular verbs with the same ending follow the same pattern.

• Verbs ending in -ar are the most common ones.

• There are also verbs ending in -or like por (to put), compor (to compose), supor (suppose), etc., but these verbs are irregular. 

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3. Mood

In Portuguese, the verbs are divided into three moods.

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Remark: 

• The subjunctive is used after certain verbs, expressions, conjunctions and adverbs. It is normally difficult to understand it as it does not have a corresponding form in English.

• The study of the subjunctive is for intermediate and advanced students, but you can easily communicate in Portuguese without it in the early stage.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Tenses) in the Portuguese Grammar book which explains in detail and gives all the rules for using the subjunctive and the other tenses available and used in Portuguese.
  

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4. Tenses

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In Portuguese, a tense can be called simple tense or compound tense. A simple tense consists of only one verb, that is, the main verb while a compound tense consists of two verbs, that is, an auxiliary verb and the main verb.
The main auxiliary verbs used in Portuguese to form compound tenses are estar (to be, used to form continuous tenses); ir (to go, used to form the future tense); ter (to have, used to form perfect tenses) and ser (to be, used to form the passive voice). 

5. Regular Verbs

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6. Irregular Verbs

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7. Active and Passive Voice

A verb can be used in the active or in the passive voice. In the active voice the subject does the action while in the passive voice the subject has the action done to it.

The passive voice can be used in all tenses. The verb ser (to be) is used to form the passive voice along with the past participle of the main verb.

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Be aware that in Portuguese in the passive voice not only the verb to be must be in agreement with the object, but also the past participle of the main verb must also be in agreement with the object.

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Remark:

• The passive voice is followed by the preposition por (by), which can vary pelo(s)/pela(s) as it must agree with the subject it refers to. However, this preposition is usually omitted if it is not important to know by whom the action was done.

• There are a few verbs like entregar (to deliver) for example, which have two past participles (entregado/entregue - delivered), a regular one and an irregular one. The irregular one (entregue) is used with the passive voice and the regular one (entregado) with the active voice.

• For those interested in learning Portuguese seriously, there is a chapter (Portuguese Tenses) in the Portuguese Grammar book which explains in more detail the use of the passive voice.