Let’s talk about an important topic: Portuguese auxiliary verbs! In a verb phrase (locução verbal), an auxiliary verb comes before the main verb. Essentially, its job is to “help” the main verb.
Most Common Portuguese Auxiliary Verbs
Here are a few of the most common verbos auxiliaresauxiliary verbs , which you will probably recognize:
terto have serto be (permanent) estarto be (temporary) ficarto become, to stay poderto be able to (may, can)
Here are just a few examples of how someone might start a sentence with an auxiliary verb:
Estou a...I am... (doing)
Vou...I will..., I'm going...
Tenho de...I have to...
Posso...I can..., I may...
Costumo...I usually...
Acabei de...I just...
Devo...I must...
Devia...I should...
Continuo a...I still..., I keep...
The main verb that follows is (almost) always either in the infinitive or in the past participle. For example:
Eu posso ajudarI can help
Este livro foi escrito por mimThis book was written by me
Shortcuts!
So, why are auxiliary verbs important? They let you express a wider variety of information about the verbs they are paired with, which greatly expands your communicative potential.
This is particularly helpful for beginners who are overwhelmed with memorizing conjugations for hundreds of verbs in many different verb tenses. As a shortcut, you could learn the conjugations for the auxiliary verbs in Portuguese, and then simply pair them with a verb in its infinitive form. Now you can talk about actions starting, ending, in the future, continuing, being possible, etc., with much more limited conjugation needed.
Of course you’ll want to learn the other verbs/tenses eventually, but if your goal is to start communicating faster, auxiliary verbs are a great way to start saying more, with less. 🙂
5 Main Use Cases for Auxiliary Verbs in European Portuguese:
- compound tenses (ter + past participle)
- passive voice (ser + past participle)
- temporal – to talk about a future action (ir or haver de + infinitive)
- aspectual – to convey information about time structure (auxiliary + infinitive)
- modal – to express different levels of possibility (auxiliary + infinitive)
Below, we’ll give you an overview of how to use auxiliary verbs in each of these 5 situations. However, our primary focus right now is on using auxiliary verbs with the infinitive (i.e. the temporal, aspectual, and modal uses).
Let’s get started!
Compound Tenses
As a quick introduction: compound tenses are usually formed by combining the auxiliary verb ter with the past participle of the main verb. For example:
Eu tenho feito exercício todos os diasI've been exercising every day, I have done exercise every day
See how using these 2 verbs together affects the tense of the action?
This gets more complicated, so you’ll learn more about Compound Tenses in a later unit.
Passive Voice
In passive sentences, the verb ser precedes the past participle of the main verb.
O jantar foi feito pela minha mãeThe dinner was made by my mother
This is a very simplified explanation of the passive voice, but again, we’ll cover it more in depth in a later unit. 😉
Temporal Auxiliary Verbs
The verb ir followed by the infinitive conveys the idea of an action taking place in the future. You may remember this from the Informal Future unit!
Eu vou fazer o almoçoI'll make lunch, I'm going to make lunch
This can also be done with haver de.
A minha mãe há de me ligarMy mother will call me
With the verb ir, we’re pointing to the near future. With the verbal phrase haver de, we’re pointing to the future in general.
Aspectual Auxiliary Verbs
First, what exactly do we mean by ‘aspectual’? The ‘aspect’ is the way a situation is envisioned in its internal time structure. 🤔
You may have heard grammar terms like perfect, imperfect, or pluperfect to describe aspect. In Portuguese, we have perfeito, imperfeito, and mais-que-perfeito. And we also have aspectual auxiliary verbs. Simply put, they tell us how the action relates to time. For example: Is/was it just starting? Ending? Still ongoing? Already completed?
O planeta está a aquecerThe planet is heating up
In this example, using the auxiliary verb (estar) tells us that the action (aquecer) is ongoing / in progress.
The aspectual auxiliary verbs can be divided into inchoactive, durative, or terminative verbs. These terms make it sound complicated, but all it means is that particular verbs can tell you about the beginning, progression, or conclusion of an action:
- Beginning – Inchoactive/inceptive verbs express the idea of the effective beginning of an action. The main one is começarto start , but there are a few others, such as recomeçarto restart , passarto pass, come to pass, start , desatarto start , etc.
Comecei a comer menos carneI started eating less meat
- Progression – Durative verbs convey the idea of duration or progression. They are estarto be (doing) , continuarto continue , ficarto stay , andarto move , irto go , virto come .
Continuo a achar que é uma péssima ideiaI still think it’s a very bad idea, I continue to think it's a very bad idea
- Conclusion – Terminative verbs emphasize the idea of the end of an action: deixarto cease and acabarto finish .
Acabei de ver um filmeI just watched a film, I (just) finished watching a film
Take another look at the examples above and you’ll notice that for inchoactive and durative auxiliary verbs, the preposition a is always used to connect them to the infinitive. With terminative verbs, it’s the preposition de instead.
Note: It’s possible for these verbs to be followed by the gerúndio as well, but this is not common in European Portuguese.
Modal Auxiliary Verbs
The main modal auxiliary verbs are:
What does ‘modal’ mean, you ask? Well, modality, in a grammatical context, is basically the presence of subjectivity. You could think of it as the ‘attitude’ of the speaker. Modal verbs provide more information about the main verb, such as the capability, intention, desire, or obligation involved in doing that action.
Modal auxiliary verbs combine with the main verb (in the infinitive) to express the value of probability, possibility, or obligation.
More specifically, the verb poder expresses possibility:
Podes vir comigoYou(sing.,inf.) can come with me
The verb dever expresses a probability or an obligation:
O meu namorado deve chegar hojeMy boyfriend should arrive today
Os alunos devem entregar o relatório amanhãStudents must turn in the report tomorrow
This “obligation” is often more like advice, rather than a mandatory action:
Devias sair mais de casaYou(sing.,inf.) should get out of the house more
Lastly, ter de or ter que are used to express a strong necessity:
Tem que ir às compras hojeYou(sing.,formal) have to go shopping today
The verb haver followed by the preposition de can also express modality values, such as desire or advice/obligation. For example:
Um dia, hei de ser ricoOne day, I will be rich
Hei de ir a Lisboa um dia destesI will go to Lisbon one of these days
Havias de sair mais vezes de casaYou(sing.,inf.) should get out of the house more often
What About Negative Phrases?
Most of the time when you make a phrase negative, you just put the adverb não before the verb. The same holds true when there’s an auxiliary verb: não comes before the entire verb phrase. For example:
- Tu não vais jogarYou will not play
- O Mário não anda a praticar portuguêsMario isn’t practicing Portuguese (lately) …Shame on you, Mário.
There are a few exceptions. Unlike the other auxiliary verbs, modal verbs sometimes allow us to place não either before the auxiliary verb or in between the auxiliary and main verbs. This is particularly true with the verb poder, as shown below. It’s important to note, however, that these two examples do not mean the same thing. The placement of the adverb não changes the meaning:
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Thank you so much for this kind comment!
What is the difference in meaning between the sentence “58% dos inquiridos a referir que não conseguem” and the sentence “58% dos inquiridos referir que não conseguem”? So what does “a” mean here? or between “um terço dos inquiridos empregados a alegar que são incapazes” and “um terço dos inquiridos empregados alegar que são incapazes”
The sentences you’ve listed all seem incomplete. We’d normally have them as part of longer sentences, where their respective clauses would start with the word com or some other connecting word:
– …com 58% dos inquiridos a referir que não conseguem
– …com um terço dos inquiridos empregados a alegar que são incapazes
We always need the preposition a here, but it doesn’t have any specific meaning per se. It works together with the subsequent infinitive as an alternative to our form of the gerund/present participle (-ing forms, in English). That is, “a referir” is interchangeable with “referindo” (referring), and “a alegar” is interchangeable with “alegando” (alleging). So, we can only drop the preposition if we replace the infinitive with the gerund.