How about a lesson that ends in a tasty reward? For all you omnivores out there, let’s explore some vocabulary in context for different types of meat, vegetables, and other ingredients with these family contributed by one of our team members and his mother. Thanks Eduardo and Fernanda! 🙌 Learn the vocabulary in the ingredients […]
Learn Portuguese by Cooking
Reflexivity with Tonic Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns tell you that an action is done to oneself (i.e. the object is the same as the subject). In English, we use words like myself, herself, and ourselves to express this idea. If you want to read more about Portuguese reflexive pronouns, we also cover them here. In order to make it easier […]
The Pronouns Si & Consigo
Grammatically speaking, the pronouns si and consigo belong to the 3rd person subjects: ele(s)/ela(s). This is because they were initially only used as reflexive pronouns*, which are pronouns that refer to the same subject or thing as the verb. For example: The sentence above is still correct and wouldn’t be confusing because the context makes […]
Using Tonic Pronouns with Prepositions
In this Learning Note, we’ll explore each tonic pronoun and see some examples of how it is used along with different prepositions. As you will see, certain prepositions change the form of the pronoun, especially . Summary Before we explain each pronoun in detail, here’s a quick overview. This chart shows each individual tonic pronoun […]
Introduction to Tonic Pronouns
Personal pronouns can be classified according to how they are used within a sentence. There are clitic pronouns (), which are unstressed, and tonic pronouns (), which are stressed. This learning note will serve as an introduction to tonic pronouns in Portuguese, however, let’s first see an overview of all the personal pronouns in order […]
Past Participles & Auxiliary Verbs
In this lesson we’re going to tackle past participles in Portuguese, i.e. So what is a past participle? A past participle is a verb form that can… function as an adjective – combine with the past tense of ser to use passive voice – combine with other auxiliary verbs (such as ter) to form different […]
Double Past Participles
In this lesson, we’ll have a look at . ‘Double’ here means that some verbs can take the form of either a regular or an irregular participle, depending on the auxiliary verb being used with them. Remember those verbs we marked off with an asterisk in the Irregular Participles learning note? They were , , […]
Irregular Past Participles
In this lesson, we’ll have a look at in Portuguese, i.e. past participles which behave in a unique and unpredictable way, instead of following the typical rules. Let’s see an example: If you are fresh off the previous lesson, perhaps you expected the past participle of to follow the rule for -IR verbs, and be […]
Regular Past Participles
In Portuguese, there are three types of past participles: , , and In this lesson, we’ll have a look at regular past participles, that is to say, past participles which behave in a predictable way. These participles depend on the verb’s ending, i.e. they have a specific ending depending on whether they’re the past participle […]
Idiomatic Expressions 2
In this Learning Note we’re going to show you a few more Portuguese idioms. This expression literally means “you’re a head of spoiled garlic”, which means you are not very bright. Although originally meant for people who are easily distracted or forgetful, it has a become an endearing way of calling someone dumb. In the […]
Irregular Verbs in the Simple Past
You’ve learned about irregular verbs and how to conjugate some of them in the present tense. If they’re irregular in the present, they’re usually irregular in other tenses too. There are no consistent rules to follow for this category, so the only way to learn the different conjugations is to study each one and practice, […]
How to Pronounce ‘S’ in Portuguese
As is the case with most languages, the same letter can be associated with different phonemes — that is to say, the same letter can be pronounced in many different ways. You’ve probably noticed that Portuguese is no exception. In this guide, we’ll focus on S, Z, C, and Ç. We’ve grouped these together because […]
The Gender of Portuguese Words
Unlike English, most Portuguese words have a gender: ♂ masculine or ♀ feminine. Sometimes you’ll notice patterns, such as the -o ending in many masculine words and the -a ending in many feminine words. There are many, many exceptions, however, so you can’t always rely on that rule. You can start by using the patterns […]
Minimal Pairs
Have you heard of Minimal Pairs? A minimal word pair consists of two words that vary by only a single sound. For example, and – the only difference is in the final sound (the vowel sounds represented by a and o). Practicing with Portuguese minimal pairs is a great way to perfect your pronunciation and […]
European Portuguese Slang
You have been learning to speak and write proper Portuguese, but not every Portuguese person speaks perfectly 100% of the time. Depending on the context, we might prefer using simpler terms to save time, explain something in a different way, joke around, or even fit in with a group. That’s where gíria popular – or just – […]
Idiomatic Expressions 1
, or idioms, are expressions that you shouldn’t interpret literally. Portuguese idioms have a symbolic meaning, which is rarely maintained upon literal translation into other languages. These expressions reflect the customs and history of the country and are part of all conversations of the Portuguese, rich or poor, from North to South of Portugal. They […]
Interjections
Interjections are words with an emotive function. They are used to express emotions, sensations, and moods. They can be just simple vowel sounds, like and , but most are either a free word or a phrase, in which case we call them . The same can have different meanings depending on the context in which […]
Past Continuous Tense
In this Learning Note, we’ll discuss a verb tense called the pretérito imperfeito do indicativo. That’s a pretty long name, so for simplicity, let’s refer to it as the ! This tense is known by a number of different names in English: past continuous, past progressive, or imperfect past. The imperfeito refers to something that […]
Talking About the Future with “Haver”
The verb can also be used indicate that someone will do something at some point in the future. To use it like this, we conjugate the verb in the Present Indicative tense and add the preposition de. This is a rather formal way of describing a future action or intention. Haver can also be used […]
Talking About the Past with “Haver”
The Portuguese often use the verb 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: Normally há means there is or there are. However, […]
Haver as “To Exist / To Have”
The first and easiest of the many meanings of is to exist. That is to say, the verb indicates that something “is” or “exists” somewhere. In English, the verb there to be would typically be used in these contexts. When used in this sense, the verb haver is impersonal and has very few usable forms. […]
The Verb “Haver”
If you’ve been learning Portuguese for a while, and if you’ve done our unit on -ER Verbs, you may have noticed a glaring absence: the verb haver, one of the most essential Portuguese verbs. Haver may be common, but it’s an odd beast, as we shall see in the next two lessons. The verb haver […]
Applying For A Portuguese NIF (Tax Number)
Portuguese bureaucracy can be very complicated, but applying for a NIF is at least a relatively gentle introduction. If you are going to live and/or work in Portugal, this number will chase you around, as you’ll need it for any kind of contract (opening a bank account, buying or renting a house, setting up utilities, […]
Impersonal vs Personal Infinitive
This learning note will cover the personal infinitive in Portuguese and how it is distinguished from the impersonal infinitive. First let’s review what we mean by infinitive. The is one of the three verbs can have. These nominal forms do not express the verb tense, mode, and person by themselves, as they are dependent on […]