Portuguese Regular and Irregular Verbs

This guide covers European and Brazilian Portuguese together, because the types barely differ: of the 532 verbs on both our lists, only one changes type. We have tables for 600 common verbs in each country, in our European Portuguese conjugation tables and Brazilian Portuguese conjugation tables. Every page names the verb's type, and the label links to the matching section below. Where the two countries differ, we say so.

The three types at a glance

Each list has 600 verbs, ranked by how often they occur in that country's film and TV subtitles, with a few everyday verbs, such as tossir, added at the end.

Which type is the most common?

That depends on what you count. Count verbs, and regular verbs win easily, with 407 of the 600 in Portugal and 417 in Brazil, about two thirds of each list. Count how often they're used, and irregular verbs win. In Portugal the whole top ten is irregular: ser, ter, estar, dizer, fazer, ir, ver, saber, poder and dar. Brazil's top ten makes one swap. Saber drops out, and falar comes in at number 8, the only regular verb in either top ten.

Irregular verbs thin out further down. In the top 20, Portugal has 14 irregular verbs, 4 regular ones and 2 with a spelling change, and Brazil has 13, 5 and 2. By the top 100, regular verbs are back in front, and the counts match in both countries: 55 regular, 31 irregular and 14 spelling-change verbs. So irregular verbs make up fewer than one in seven of each list but dominate everyday speech. You meet them first and most often, while most of the verbs you add later will be regular.

The ending is a good clue too. Here is how each list splits, with Portugal's count first and Brazil's second:

An -ar verb is almost always regular or a spelling change: only 13 of Portugal's 408 are irregular, and 10 of Brazil's 419. The -ir verbs go the other way, and more than half of them are irregular in both lists.

Regular verbs

Portuguese has three conjugations, named for the infinitive ending: -ar, -er and -ir. Each has a regular model. Drop the ending to find the stem, then add the endings for each person. Here is the present tense of falar (to speak), comer (to eat) and partir (to leave):

The -er and -ir patterns differ only in nós and vós: comemos but partimos, comeis but partis. The remaining four forms share their endings (como and parto, comes and partes), so if you know comer, partir's present has just two new forms.

The other tenses work the same way. In the preterite the three give falei, comi and parti, and their past participles are falado, comido and partido. Our tables label 407 verbs regular in Portugal and 417 in Brazil, and every one follows these models in every tense.

One regular form is spelled differently in the two countries. Portugal writes the preterite “we” form of -ar verbs with an accent, falámos, and Brazil writes falamos, the same as the present. Both count as regular. The Portugal and Brazil section explains the accent.

Spelling-change verbs

These verbs take the regular endings, but a letter changes in some forms so the stem keeps its sound. Grammar books count them as regular. Cunha and Cintra's Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo calls these changes simple spelling adjustments, and says that chegar and caçar are not irregular verbs. We give them a label of their own because the spelling is the part you have to learn.

Our 108 spelling-change verbs in Portugal and 103 in Brazil fall under eight rules:

-car, -gar and -çar. These change before e, as in the eu form of the preterite and the present subjunctive. Ficar gives fiquei and fique, chegar gives cheguei and chegue, and começar gives comecei and comece. Tocar, pegar, jogar and dançar work the same way.

-cer, -ger and -gir. These change before a and o, which happens in the eu form of the present and in the present subjunctive. Conhecer gives conheço and conheça, proteger gives protejo and proteja, and dirigir gives dirijo and dirija. Parecer, esquecer and agir (ajo) follow the same rules.

-uir verbs. Where partir has partes and parte, possuir has possuis and possui, because the u and the i are said together as one syllable. In some forms the i is stressed and said apart from the u, and there it takes an accent: possuímos, incluído. Incluir, concluir, diminuir and substituir work the same way. Construir and destruir go further and change their vowel (constróis, constrói), so they're labeled irregular.

The hiatus accent. When a stressed i or u follows another vowel and is said as a syllable of its own, it takes an acute accent. Reunir gives reúno, reúnes, reúne and reúnem, but reunimos and reunis, where the stress falls on the ending. Arruinar follows the same rule, and so does saudar in the Portugal list.

Doer. It means to hurt, and our tables give doer only third-person forms, such as dói and doem. The i in dói comes from the same rule as possui.

The same rules run through some irregular verbs too. Pagar gives paguei, like chegar, and fugir gives fujo, like dirigir. Both are labeled irregular all the same, because each has a second quirk and the irregular label always wins. Pagar's participle is pago, and fugir changes its vowel in foges and foge.

So if a form of a spelling-change verb looks odd, check the rule first. The endings are always regular.

Irregular verbs

Our tables call a verb irregular when any form, in any simple tense or in the participle used with ter, breaks the pattern in a way the spelling rules don't explain. That gives 85 irregular verbs in Portugal and 80 in Brazil. If you can't build a form from falar, comer or partir, the verb is irregular. That makes the label broad. Besides the classic irregulars, it takes in four groups that some grammars call regular or put in a class of their own: the -ir verbs that change their stem vowel, the -ear verbs, the -uzir verbs and six verbs that are irregular only in the participle.

The core irregulars. These break the pattern in several tenses, and they're the verbs you'll use most. Their key forms are the same in both countries:

Ser and ir share a preterite. Fui means “I was” or “I went,” and the sentence tells you which. They share the future subjunctive, for, as well.

Estar and dar are the only -ar verbs on either list that are irregular in the traditional sense. The other irregular -ar verbs follow small patterns covered below, such as passear (passeio) and pagar (pago).

Ter is also the helper verb for the compound tenses (tenho falado). Manter, obter, conter and deter are built on it and follow its forms: mantenho, mantive.

Vir uses vindo as both its gerund and its participle. Its present “we” form, vimos, is also the preterite of ver, so vimos can mean “we come” or “we saw.” Ver returns the favor in the future subjunctive, where its form is vir.

Pôr keeps its circumflex to tell it apart from the preposition por. Grammars count it with the -er verbs, since it comes from Latin ponere through the older form poer, and the e still shows in pusemos. Our tables label pôr and its compounds propor, supor and expor irregular, because no regular model fits an infinitive in -or. Many learner sites treat the four as a group of their own: proponho, propus and proposto follow ponho, pus and posto.

Saber, poder, querer and haver each have a preterite stem of their own: soube, pude, quis, houve. Poder's ele form, pôde, differs from the present pode only by its circumflex.

Irregular only in the present. Many irregular verbs are regular everywhere except the present, the present subjunctive and the commands. Perder gives perco, pedir gives peço, ouvir gives ouço, ler gives leio and sair gives saio, and the change carries into the present subjunctive: perca, peça, ouça, leia, saia. Rir has a small pattern of its own: rio, ri, riem.

-ir verbs that change their stem vowel. In these verbs the vowel of the stem changes in some forms of the present. There are three patterns:

The other forms keep the vowel of the infinitive. Sentir gives sinto but sentes, dormir gives durmo but dormes, and subir gives subo and subimos but sobe. Cunha and Cintra argue that vowel changes like these are the norm in Portuguese rather than exceptions, and suggest treating these verbs as a class of their own. Portuguese school grammars list them as irregular, and so do our tables.

The -ear verbs. Verbs in -ear add an i in the forms where the stem is stressed. Passear gives passeio, passeias, passeia and passeiam, but passeamos, where the stress moves to the ending. Odiar does the same (odeio), though most -iar verbs, such as criar and enviar, are regular. Our tables label the -ear verbs irregular, 6 in Portugal and 4 in Brazil. Some Brazilian references call them regular with a note about the ei, so you'll see both labels.

The -uzir verbs. Produzir, conduzir, reduzir and traduzir drop the final e in the ele form of the present: produz, where partir has parte. That one missing letter is enough for our tables to call them irregular, and some Brazilian references call them regular.

Six verbs irregular only in the participle. Abrir (aberto), escrever (escrito), descrever (descrito), pagar (pago), ganhar (ganho) and gastar (gasto) follow the regular pattern in every other form, apart from the spelling change in pagar's paguei. Grammars such as Cunha and Cintra's call them regular verbs with an irregular participle, and a teacher probably will too. Our tables call them irregular because the participle is a form you can't build from the pattern.

Three short futures. Only three verbs on either list have an irregular future: fazer gives farei, dizer gives direi and trazer gives trarei. The conditional uses the same short stem. Every other verb builds its future on the infinitive, even ser, ter and ir: serei, terei, irei.

Two participles

Most verbs have one past participle. A few have two: a regular one in -ado or -ido that goes with ter, and a short one that goes with ser and estar, where it works like an adjective. Matar gives matado with ter and morto with ser or estar. Aceitar gives aceitado with ter, and with ser or estar it gives aceite in Portugal and aceito in Brazil. So “had accepted” is tinha aceitado in both countries, while “was accepted” is foi aceite in Portugal and foi aceito in Brazil.

Our verb pages show the second participle in a row of its own, “Past participle (with ser, estar).” It appears on 13 European pages and 16 Brazilian ones. It doesn't change the verb's type: matar and aceitar are regular in our tables, because the participle they use with ter is the regular one. Short forms that survive only as adjectives are left out on purpose.

Pagar, ganhar and gastar have gone further, and their short form has taken over after ter as well. In Portugal the forms with ter are pago, ganho and gasto (tenho pago), and grammars note that pagado has largely given way to pago. Brazil still accepts both, so our Brazilian tables give pago, ganho and gasto as the first forms, with pagado, ganhado and gastado beside them. In both lists the short form comes first, which is why these three are labeled irregular.

Portugal and Brazil: what changes

The conjugation itself barely changes. Both countries use the same endings for every person, and only one verb on both lists has a different type. What differs is one accent, some of the verbs, and above all how the forms are used.

What stays the same. Both countries use two forms you won't find in English. The personal infinitive adds person endings to the infinitive, and the future subjunctive is an everyday tense: quando eu fizer (“when I do”). In regular verbs the two look the same, so for eu, falar is both. In irregular verbs the future subjunctive is built on the preterite stem (fizemos and fizer, soubemos and souber, fomos and for), so fazer gives fazer and fizer. Both are in our tables for both countries.

One accent. The most common spelling difference between our two lists is the accent in the preterite “we” form of -ar verbs. On the European page for falar, that form is falámos, and 405 of Portugal's 408 -ar verbs print the accent. Brazil's tables give falamos, spelled like the present. The 1990 spelling agreement makes the accent optional. It's there to tell the past from the present, because in Portugal the two are pronounced differently. In Brazil, falamos can mean “we speak” or “we spoke,” and context decides.

Some different verbs. Each list has 600 verbs, and 532 are in both. Each has 68 the other lacks, and some of those are the two countries' words for the same thing: planear in Portugal and planejar in Brazil, registar and registrar, partilhar and compartilhar. A pair can even differ in type. Planear is an -ear verb, so our tables call it irregular, while planejar is regular.

The one verb on both lists that changes type is explodir. For “I explode,” the European table gives expludo, which makes the verb irregular, and the Brazilian table gives explodo, which keeps it regular. Older grammars avoided the question by giving explodir no eu form at all.

Tense names. Portugal calls the subjunctive conjuntivo and the conditional condicional. Brazil says subjuntivo and futuro do pretérito. Our tables use each country's terms.

The bigger differences are in how the forms are used.

Tu and você. Both countries use você with the third-person verb: você fala. In Brazil, você is the everyday “you.” Where tu survives, in some southern and northern states, it often takes the third-person verb too (tu vai). In Portugal, the informal “you” is tu with its own forms (tu vais, tu falas). Você can sound stiff or even rude there, so people often leave the pronoun out or use the person's name with a third-person verb. A Brazilian learner mostly needs the eu, você, nós and vocês forms, and a European learner needs the tu forms as well.

Vós and a gente. Vós is fading in both countries. It survives mainly in some northern Portuguese dialects and in church language, and vocês, with the third-person plural, has replaced it for most speakers. Our tables still give the vós forms (falais, comeis, partis), but you can leave them until last. Informal speech in both countries also uses a gente for “we,” with the third-person singular: a gente vai.

The progressive. For “I'm speaking,” Portugal says estou a falar, with a and the infinitive, and Brazil says estou falando, with the gerund. Within Portugal, the gerund is still heard in the Alentejo and the Algarve, and in Madeira and the Azores.

Where the pronoun goes. Portugal usually puts an object pronoun after the verb, joined by a hyphen, and Brazil prefers it before. Pedro trouxe-lhe flores (Pedro brought her flowers) is the only possible order in Portugal, while Brazil also allows Pedro lhe trouxe flores. Formal European Portuguese can even put the pronoun inside a future or conditional form, between the infinitive and the ending. In Portugal this mesoclisis is required in formal writing but rare in everyday speech. In Brazil it has nearly vanished from the press, and style guides call it pretentious or archaic.

In what order to learn them

1. The three regular models. Falar, comer and partir cover 407 verbs in Portugal and 417 in Brazil, or 515 and 520 with the spelling-change verbs. If you're learning European Portuguese, learn the tu forms with them.
2. The top ten, by heart. All of Portugal's top ten are irregular, and nine of Brazil's. They're the verbs you'll hear most, so learn them early, one verb at a time, the way you'd learn vocabulary.
3. The spelling rules, as you meet them. Each one exists to keep a sound, so it's one small rule on top of endings you already know.
4. The irregular families. Take the e to i verbs together (sentir, preferir, servir), then dormir and tossir, then the verbs with a new eu form, such as perder (perco) and pedir (peço).
5. The participles. Learn the irregular ones, such as feito, dito, visto, escrito and aberto, with their verbs, and add the second participles once you use ser and estar with them.

To drill one family at a time, the European Portuguese verb conjugation worksheet generator and the Brazilian Portuguese verb conjugation worksheet generator print exercises for the verbs and tenses you choose. Put sentir, preferir and servir on one sheet, and you'll write the same e to i change three times: sinto, prefiro, sirvo. By the third, it stops looking irregular.

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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).