Portuguese 3: Ser, Estar, Ter, Ir, Fazer, plus Articles & Contractions

Five verbs carry an enormous share of everyday Portuguese: ser and estar (two verbs for “to be”), ter (to have), ir (to go) and fazer (to do, to make). All five are irregular, and all five turn up in almost every conversation. Learn them as blocks and a great many sentences open up at once.

This piece gives you those five, sorts the other common irregular verbs into a few families, and then turns to the small words that sit around every verb: the articles o, a, um, uma, and the way Portuguese fuses them with prepositions, so that de + o is always do and em + a is always na. There is a trainer for the verbs and a sorter for ser and estar. Take it in two sittings if you like.

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The five verbs you use all day

	ser	estar	ter	ir	fazer
eu	sou	estou	tenho	vou	faço
tu	és	estás	tens	vais	fazes
ele, você, a gente	é	está	tem	vai	faz
nós	somos	estamos	temos	vamos	fazemos
eles, vocês	são	estão	têm	vão	fazem

Each has a job beyond its dictionary meaning, and the jobs are worth learning with the forms.

• Ter is “to have”, and also gives age (Tenho trinta anos) and obligation (Tenho que sair, “I have to go”). In Brazilian speech tem also means “there is” and “there are”: Tem uma farmácia aqui perto? Writing, and Portugal, use há from haver. Note tem (he has) and têm (they have): they sound the same in Brazil, and the circumflex marks the plural.
• Ir + infinitive is the everyday future: Vou viajar amanhã, “I’m going to travel tomorrow”. It works even with ir itself: Vou ir is common in Brazilian speech, though careful writing prefers Vou.
• Fazer describes weather and counts time: Faz frio (it’s cold), Faz dois anos que moro aqui (I’ve lived here for two years).
• Estar shrinks in relaxed Brazilian speech: tô, tá, tamo, tão. Tá bom (OK) and Tô cansado (I’m tired) are everywhere; write the full forms.

The other irregulars, in families

Most other common irregular verbs break the pattern in only one or two places, and in repeating ways.

Irregular in eu only. The rest of the verb follows the regular pattern: poder gives posso but podes, pode, podemos, podem; likewise saber (sei), pedir (peço), ouvir (ouço), perder (perco). Dizer, trazer and querer add one more change, a short ele form: digo, diz; trago, traz; quero, quer.

Short verbs. Some of the most common verbs are only a syllable or two long, and their forms are best learned as blocks:

	eu	tu	ele	nós	eles
dar (give)	dou	dás	dá	damos	dão
ver (see)	vejo	vês	vê	vemos	veem
vir (come)	venho	vens	vem	vimos	vêm
ler (read)	leio	lês	lê	lemos	leem
pôr (put)	ponho	pões	põe	pomos	põem
sair (go out)	saio	sais	sai	saímos	saem

Vir and ver are easy to confuse: vem is “comes”, vê is “sees”, and vimos is both “we come” and “we saw”. Pôr keeps its circumflex so it is not confused with por (by, for); Brazil often says colocar instead.

Vowel changes. A group of -ir verbs changes the stem vowel in eu only: dormir gives durmo (then dormes, dorme); sentir, preferir, vestir and repetir give sinto, prefiro, visto, repito. Subir works the other way round: subo, but sobes, sobe, sobem. And -ear verbs add an i when the stress falls on the stem: passeio, passeias, but passeamos.

Spelling that protects a sound. These are not really irregular: one letter changes before -o so the sound stays the same. Conhecer gives conheço (c becomes ç), proteger gives protejo (g becomes j), seguir gives sigo (gu becomes g, together with the e-to-i change). When a form looks odd, ask what sound the spelling is protecting.

Train the irregular forms

The same trainer as in the previous piece, now with four groups: the five core verbs, the other irregulars, the vowel changes and the spelling changes. It starts with the core five only. Drill one group until it feels easy, then add the next with the first row of buttons. The note after each answer explains the pattern behind the form.

Ser or estar: what it is, or how it is now

Like Spanish, Portuguese has two verbs for “to be”, and the first rule is the same: ser says what something is; estar says how or where it is right now. Use ser for identity and definition (Lisboa é a capital), professions (Sou enfermeira), origin (Somos do Canadá), lasting traits (Ele é alto), and days, dates and times (Hoje é sábado. São três horas.). Use estar for states that can change (Estou cansada), for where people and movable things are (As chaves estão na mesa), and with a gerund for what is happening now (Estou estudando).

Three points differ from Spanish, which matters if you know it. First, the fixed location of a building, a town or a country takes ser, or very often ficar: O museu é no centro, O museu fica no centro, where Spanish says está. Second, being hungry, thirsty, sleepy or cold is estar com in Brazil (Estou com fome), where Spanish uses tener; Portugal often says tenho fome. Third, ficar also means “to become” or “to get”: Fiquei feliz, “I was (became) happy”.

As in Spanish, some adjectives change meaning with the verb: Ele é chato (he is boring, annoying) but Ele está chato hoje (he’s being a pain today); A sopa é boa (it is good soup) but A sopa está boa (the soup tastes good right now).

Articles: o, a, um, uma

Every noun is masculine or feminine, and the article tells you which. The is o, a, os, as; a, an is um, uma (plural uns, umas, “some”). Nouns in -o are usually masculine and nouns in -a feminine, with famous exceptions: o dia, o mapa, o problema, a mão, a foto. Nouns in -ção are feminine (a estação); most other nouns in -ão are masculine (o pão). Learn every noun with its article.

Portuguese uses the in places English does not:

• With names, in much of Brazil and in Portugal: A Ana chegou, “Ana has arrived”. Usage varies by region; leaving it out is always understood.
• With most countries: o Brasil, a França, os Estados Unidos, but Portugal, Angola and Moçambique take none.
• Before a possessive: o meu carro, a minha casa. Usual in Portugal, optional in Brazil (meu carro).
• For things in general: O café faz bem, “coffee is good for you”.

Contractions: do, na, ao, pelo

The four commonest prepositions, de (of, from), em (in, on, at), a (to, at) and por (by, through, for), fuse with a following article. This is not optional: em o and de a are simply wrong.

	o	a	os	as
de	do	da	dos	das
em	no	na	nos	nas
a	ao	à	aos	às
por	pelo	pela	pelos	pelas

So: Sou do Brasil, Moro na Bahia, Vou ao cinema, Passo pela praça. The grave accent on à and às only ever marks a + a: Vou à praia, às oito horas. Brazilian speech often uses em with verbs of motion (Vou no mercado), where writing, and Portugal, use a (Vou ao mercado); and in speech para shrinks to pra, with pro for para o.

The same fusing happens with other small words. Em + um is num (Moro num prédio), very common in speech. De + ele is dele, and that gives Brazil its usual way to say “his” and “her”: o carro dele, a casa dela, because seu now usually means “your”. And with the demonstratives: deste, nesse, daquele, àquele.

Common mistakes

• Ser for a feeling. Sou cansado describes a tiring person; for being tired now, estou cansado.
• Estar for a building’s place. O banco está na esquina is heard, but O banco é na esquina or fica na esquina is the natural Portuguese.
• Ser or ter for hunger. In Brazil, estou com fome, estou com sede, estou com frio. Age is ter: tenho vinte anos.
• Uncontracted prepositions. Em o centro and de a cidade are wrong: no centro, da cidade.
• Regularising. Eu podo, eu fazo and eu sabo are what the regular pattern predicts and what nobody says: posso, faço, sei.
• Tem and têm, vem and vêm. In writing the circumflex marks the plural: ele tem, eles têm.

Your next four days

Day	Trainer	Outside the page
1	The core five only	Say five true sentences, one with each of ser, estar, ter, ir, fazer.
2	Add the other irregulars	Read the contraction table aloud, then say where you live and work with no, na, do, da.
3	Add the vowel and spelling changes	Run the ser or estar sorter twice.
4	Everything, with tu if you need it	Describe your room and your mood in four sentences.

What sticks

• Learn ser, estar, ter, ir and fazer as blocks: sou, estou, tenho, vou, faço.
• Ter also gives age, obligation (ter que) and, in Brazilian speech, “there is”; ir + infinitive is the everyday future.
• Most other irregulars break only in eu (posso, sei, peço), or are short verbs to learn whole (dou, vejo, venho, leio, ponho).
• Ser is for what something is, estar for how or where it is now; fixed places take ser or ficar, and hunger is estar com.
• Learn every noun with o or a; use the article with names, most countries and things in general.
• de, em, a and por always fuse with the article: do, na, ao, pelo; à marks a + a.