The Portuguese often use the verb haver to discuss the past, whether it be minutes, hours, days, months, or years.
In these contexts, haver is an impersonal verb, meaning that it doesn’t take a particular subject and is always used in the present tense form of the third-person conjugation: há
Normally há means there is or there are. However, when há is used before words that express an amount of time, you can think of it more like the word ago (which in English is placed after a time-related phrase) or as standing in for other phrases that indicate a certain amount of time has passed.
The phrase construction is pretty straightforward:
Há + Amount of Time Passed
Comprei esta caneta há uma semana.I bought this pen a week ago.
Há cinquenta anos, a Internet não existia.Fifty years ago, the Internet didn't exist.
O avião aterrou há dois minutos.The airplane landed two minutes ago.
As piscinas fecharam há cinco minutos.The pools closed five minutes ago.
Há muito que não comia panquecas assim.I haven't had pancakes like those in a long time.
Estou à espera do cartão há seis meses.I've been waiting for that card for six months.
Similarly, haver can be used to ask how long something has been going on for. Examples:
Há quanto tempo estás à espera?How long have you been waiting for?
Está a chover há muito?Has it been raining for long?
Notice that há by itself means nothing – it always requires a quantifier (muito, pouco, algum, etc.) or a specific amount of time (seis minutos, dois meses, vinte anos, etc.).
Usage in European vs. Brazilian Portuguese
There’s another word that Portuguese speakers (of both dialects) use in similar contexts. The word atrásbehind usually translates to behind, but in the context of time, it means ago. The usage is a little bit different in each dialect:
- European Portuguese speakers often use há and atrás together in the same construction: há + amount of time + atrás. Not only does this sound redundant, it’s also incorrect and you should avoid using this combination of words.
Eles chegaram há uma hora atrás.They arrived one hour ago.
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- In everyday speech, Brazilian Portuguese speakers may avoid the redundancy by dropping the há altogether and sticking with just atrás. (E.g. Eles chegaram uma hora atrás.They arrived one hour ago. ) This is rarely heard in European Portuguese, though.
Preferably, they may also say Faz uma hora que eles chegaram.It's been an hour since they arrived. .
Houve and Havia
The forms houve and havia can also be used to talk about the past. For example:
Houve uma explosãoThere was an explosion
Havia um parque aquiThere was a park here, There used to be a park here
Houve is a simple past form, while havia is an imperfect past, or past continuous, form. Just like in the present tense, the verb is only used in a third-person singular conjugation in the past tenses.
Há muito que não comia panquecas assim. Doesn’t make sense to me because there is no numerical quantifier. Há muito tempo que…………. Makes the sentence much easier to understand. Do you just assume that it could be time, or weeks, or years?
Best regards.
Olá, David. We just think of it as a vague, undefined period of time. “Há muito que” is really just an abbreviated form of “Há muito tempo que” – consider them one and the same thing 🙂
I thought the same as David. Thanks for the clarification, Joseph.
So, houve and havia are basically interchangeable? Thanks, in advance.
They both sometimes mean “there was”, but houve is in the pretérito perfeito(simple past) and havia is in the pretérito imperfeito (past continuous). So with verbs in the pretérito imperfeito, you are referring to an event from the past that was ongoing, whereas with the pretérito perfeito, it’s a more isolated event with a clear end point. You can read more here to get a sense of when you would use the imperfeito:
Past Continuous
No Brasil diria “Faz uma hora que chegaram”, enquanto nós dizemos “Chegaram há uma hora”. Uma vez que temos o “há” é redundante dizer “atrás”.
Exacto, essa redundância é indicada no artigo 🙂 Obrigado!
Olá Rui e Joel. Adoro PP:) Uma pergunta: posso dizer ‘moro aqui há dois anos’? I.e. using the present tense to talk about the past?
Olá, George. Sim, a frase “Moro aqui há dois anos” é totalmente idiomática, podes e deves dizê-la 🙂
Why do you use estou a espera (imagine the accent! ) and not estou a esperar. But esta a chover. Is it just a specific colloquial expression or could you use either.
Olá, Joanna. “Estou à espera” literally translates to “I am in the wait for”. “Estou a esperar” is what you know as the Portuguese equivalent of the Present Continuous, meaning “I am waiting for”. Both options are grammatically correct, but “Estou à espera” is the most commonly used.
Does há also mean there were? For example, “There were 4 people in the restaurant.” Posso dizer, “Há cuatro pessoas no restaurante.”
“Há” (in the present tense) is only used to refer to the past when linked directly to a certain time period, where it means “ago”:
– Eu cheguei há duas horas = I arrived two hours ago
– Nós fomos há uma semana = We went a week ago
In this case, you want to use the verb “haver” as the English “there to be”, so you must conjugate it accordingly, in the past/present/future:
– There are 4 people in the restaurant (present) = Há 4 pessoas no restaurante (present)
– There were 4 people in the restaurant (past) = Havia 4 pessoas no restaurante (past – we use the imperfect past in this context)
– There will be 4 people in the restaurant (future) = Haverá 4 pessoas no restaurante (future)
Obrigada!
Can you explain the difference between havia and houve? Both are translated as there was/were.
“Houve” is in the simple past, but “havia” is in the past continuous. Each one is applicable in different contexts. You can check out this unit dedicated to the simple past: Simple Past – Practice Portuguese
The past continuous also has a dedicated unit, which opens with this Learning Note: Past Continuous Tense
Please could you explain why in the unit 6 phrase “there was a party in the village” there is no need for the indefinate article “uma” before festa? “Houve festa…). Thank you
That is a good question! When we say “Houve festa” it’s like saying “There was partying” more than “There was a party”, but for the translation the best fit would be the latter, and both have the same meaning. So, here it’s totally optional to use “uma”. It would also be correct saying “Houve uma festa”! Also, it’s a cultural thing to have these kind of celebrations in some Portuguese villages. So, not using “uma” gives us the indication that it’s common to have parties in the village, not just this particular one.
Great thank you for the explanation, good to know it’s not incorrect to use it in some instances.
It would be helpful in this learning note to give a simple explanation of the difference between simple past & imperfect past, especially since you have 2 lessons that show these two tenses. I ended up googling it so that I could understand why you used houve in some cases and havia in others. It almsot seems like you quickly glossed over houve & havia, but then threw in 2 lessons.
Thanks for your feedback, Paula! At the end of this article, we do have a link towards another Learning Note that explains the imperfect past in detail (Past Continuous Tense). In any case, we’ll take a deeper look at this article to see if we can already include some extra quick tips in here without making it overwhelming.
Can “eu tinha chegado” be used instead of “eu havia chegado”? Many thanks.
Yes, absolutely. In fact, ‘tinha’ is the most usual choice 🙂
“Estou em Portugal há mais de 5 anos”
how do you differentiate between;
“I’ve been in Portugal for more than 5 years”
and
“I was in Portugal more than 5 years ago”
Good question. We differentiate by the choice of verb tense:
– Estou em Portugal há mais de 5 anos -> I’ve been in Portugal for more than 5 years
– Estive em Portugal há mais de 5 anos -> I was in Portugal more than 5 years ago