Free Brazilian Portuguese Verb Conjugation Quiz

How the Brazilian Portuguese conjugation quiz works

Setup takes two steps. Step one is the tenses: tick the ones you want from the same 18 as the worksheets, or press “Tick all”, since none are ticked when the page opens. Each tense carries an example in plain English, such as “quando eu falar · when I speak (later on)” for the future subjunctive. Step two is the verbs. All 600 are ranked by how often they occur in Brazilian film and TV subtitles, and with every box empty you get all of them. The first group asks how the verb changes: regular (falar → falo, falei), spelling change only (ficar → fiquei, conhecer → conheço) or irregular (ser, ter, fazer → faço, pôr → ponho). The second asks how the infinitive ends: -ar, -er (pôr included) or -ir. The third separates the four verbs always used with se, such as queixar-se (eu me queixo), from everything else. Ticks in one group add up, and groups narrow each other. A group with nothing ticked keeps all its verbs.

Then press “Start the quiz”. It asks for one form at a time, such as “eu · queixar-se · present”, with the English meaning underneath, and here the answer is eu me queixo, or just me queixo. Press Enter or Check to have it marked. A wrong answer shows the correct form, and the count of right and wrong answers, with a percentage, stays on screen. You decide when to stop. Every question comes up once before any repeats, in a new random order each pass. “Stop and see my score” gives your score and the forms you missed, and “Practice my mistakes” drills just those. The verb ticks are remembered on this device, but the tenses start empty each time.

Eu me queixo: the pronoun before the verb

The quiz follows Brazil, where the reflexive pronoun goes before the verb: eu me queixo, eu me queixarei, eu tinha me queixado. Commands keep it after the verb, as in queixe-se, and the negative is não se queixe. Portugal's placement is also Brazil's formal written norm, so queixo-me, queixar-me-ei and tinha-me queixado are marked right too. Spelling follows Brazil as well. The -ar preterite has no accent, so nós falamos means both “we speak” and “we spoke”, and verbs keep Brazil's spelling, such as registrar and planejar. If you learn the Portuguese of Portugal, the European Portuguese verb conjugation quiz expects falámos and the pronoun after the verb.

What you type: você, tu, accents and hyphens

Most of Brazil says você, which takes the ele form: você fala, vocês falam. The quiz asks for the tu forms as well, such as tu falas, because Brazilian tables list tu and parts of Brazil use it. Vós is switched off when the page opens, as on the worksheets, because it's rarely used today. Tick “Include vós” to add it. The subject pronoun is optional, so eu falo and falo both count. Accents are not. Type “ele pode” when the answer is “ele pôde” and the quiz marks it wrong, with the note “Almost: check the accents and hyphens” and the right answer, because pode means “he can” and pôde “he could”. A missing hyphen, as in “queixe se”, gets the same note. Buttons on screen type á, â, ã, à, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ and ú, so you don't need a Portuguese keyboard, and capital letters don't matter.

The 18 tenses, with Brazil's names

Brazilian grammar calls the conditional the futuro do pretérito and the subjunctive the subjuntivo, and the quiz uses those names. The indicative has the present (eu falo), preterite (eu falei), imperfect (eu falava), simple pluperfect (eu falara, mostly in writing), future (eu falarei) and conditional (eu falaria). The perfect tenses are built with ter: present perfect (eu tenho falado), pluperfect (eu tinha falado), future perfect (eu terei falado) and conditional perfect (eu teria falado). The present perfect needs care. Eu tenho falado means “I have been speaking lately”, and the English “I have spoken” is the preterite, eu falei. The subjuntivo has the present (que eu fale), imperfect (se eu falasse), future (quando eu falar), perfect (que eu tenha falado) and pluperfect (se eu tivesse falado). Then come the personal infinitive (para nós falarmos) and the commands, affirmative and negative: fale, não fale. Que, se and quando before the subjuntivo are optional, and so are para before the personal infinitive and não in a negative command. Where Brazilian usage accepts two participles, both count: tenho pago and tenho pagado. Chove (it rains) takes no pronoun.

How accurate are the forms?

The quiz uses the same tables as the worksheets. The forms come from Wiktionary, sorted into Brazil's forms and Portugal's by Wiktionary's own regional labels, then checked against LanguageTool's Portuguese dictionary, the verbecc conjugator and Brazil's spelling dictionary. The Brazilian Portuguese worksheet page gives the full results and explains the differences we found.

A quiz for you, a worksheet for the class

The quiz is made for one person at a keyboard or a phone, checking answers as they go. Before a test, tick only the tenses it covers, such as the preterite (eu falei) and the future subjunctive (quando eu falar), and end each run with “Practice my mistakes”. For a class, the same verbs and tenses print as Brazilian Portuguese verb conjugation worksheets: fill-in boxes, a printed quick quiz and a verb chart, with answer keys on separate pages. To look up one verb, every form of all 600 is in the Brazilian Portuguese conjugation tables. And if you learn Spanish or German too, the Spanish and German verb conjugation quizzes work the same way.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

Conjugation tables come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Verbs are ranked by Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords list, built from OpenSubtitles 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).