Portuguese Grammar for Beginners

This beginner’s guide to Portuguese grammar covers essential rules and principles with clear examples, giving you a straightforward overview of the language’s structure. Read on.

Word Order

To understand word order, you need to grasp three key elements: Subject (S), Verb (V), and Object (O).

In a basic sentence, the Subject performs the action, the Verb represents the action, and the Object receives the action.

Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)

Portuguese, like English, is a Subject-Verb-Object language: 

S > V > O
O Ricardo comeu uma maçã.
Ricardo ate an apple.

This is a basic sentence structure, but languages can be more complex and often deviate from SVO word order. Still, we can assume that Portuguese generally follows this pattern.

Further reading
Portuguese Grammar Compared to English

Adjectives first

Adjectives describe or modify nouns. For example, in “the yellow house,” the adjective “yellow” describes “house.”

In Portuguese, unlike in English, adjectives usually come after the noun they modify:

O Ricardo comeu uma maçã verde.
Ricardo ate a green apple.

As seen above, the adjective verde (green) follows the noun it modifies, maçã (apple).

Further reading
Adjectives vs Adverbs: What’s the Difference?

Negation

Let’s now look at how to negate the previous sentence:

O Ricardo não comeu uma maçã verde. 
Ricardo didn’t eat a green apple.

Notice that the negating adverb não comes before the verb comer (to eat). Unlike in English, Portuguese doesn’t require an auxiliary verb to negate a sentence.

Another key feature of Portuguese and other Romance languages is double negation:

O Ricardo não comeu nehuma uma maçã verde. 
x Ricardo didn’t eat none green apples. (literal translation)

Further reading
Double Negation in Portuguese

Interrogative vs. declarative sentences

In the absence of a question word (e.g., what, why, etc.), the word order remains the same for both declarative and interrogative sentences:

Declarative sentence
Tu estás no Porto. 
You are in Porto.

Interrogative sentence
Tu estás no Porto?
Are you in Porto?

Since declarative and interrogative sentences look alike, intonation becomes crucial to avoid confusion.

For example, when asking Tu estás no Porto?, you should use a rising tone at the end to signal that it’s a question.

Question words

Here’s a summary of Portuguese question words.

Question words	Usage examples
O que   what	O que estás a fazer? What are you doing?
Como   how	Como está o teu irmão? How is your brother?
Quando   when	Quando chegas? When are you arriving?
Onde where	Onde estás? Where are you?
Porque  why	Porque não falas comigo? Why are you not speaking with me?
Quanto  how much	Quanto é? How much is it?
Quantos how many	Quantos melões tens? How many melons have you got?
Qual which	Qual preferes? Which one do you prefer?

Further reading
Asking Questions in Portuguese: Question Words and Beyond

Gender Agreement

Portuguese, like other Romance languages, has grammatical gender. Most nouns are either masculine or feminine, and this gender will affect other parts of speech in the language.

Articles, pronouns, and adjectives change their endings to match the gender of the noun they refer to:

A minha casa é espaçosa.
My house is spacious.

O meu apartamento é espaçoso.
My apartment is spacious.

In the first sentence above, the article a, the possessive pronoun minha, and the adjective espaçosa all match the feminine noun casa.

Conversely, in the second sentence, the same words agree with the masculine noun apartamento.

While this may seem intricate, there are gender spelling patterns in Portuguese that will make it easier to get comfortable with gender.

“A” for feminine, “O” for masculine

Nouns ending in -a or -o often (there are exceptions!) reveal their gender:

Feminine
casa; mesa; cortina; faca
(house; table; curtain; knife)

Masculine
carro; banco; copo; garfo
(car; bank; glass; fork)

In these examples, words ending in -a are feminine, and those ending in -o are masculine. This is a helpful pattern.

However, some nouns end in letters other than -a or -o, like pente (comb) or telemóvel (mobile). While there are additional spelling patterns to help you guess the gender, you’ll need to memorize some of them over time.

Further reading
Gender of Portuguese Words

Articles and other gender determiners

Determiners are small words that come before nouns, such as articles, demonstratives, and possessives. In Portuguese, most determiners change form to agree with the gender of the noun:

Conforming to feminine (zebra is a feminine noun)
a zebra; uma zebra; a minha zebra; essa zebra
(the zebra; a zebra; my zebra; that zebra)

Conforming to masculine (cavalo is a masculine noun)
o cavalo; um cavalo; o meu cavalo; esse cavalo
(the horse; a horse; my horse; that horse)

You can be sure that cavalo is masculine, not just because it ends with an -o, but because the preceding determiners indicate its gender.

Here are a few examples of determiners in their masculine and feminine forms:

	masculine	feminine
definite articles the	o	a
indefinite articles a	um	uma
possessives my, your	meu, teu	minha, tua
demonstratives this, that	este, esse	esta, essa
numerals one, two	um, dois	uma, duas

Further reading
Portuguese Definite and Indefinite Articles – When to Use Either
Portuguese Possessive Pronouns and Adjectives
Portuguese Demonstrative Pronouns and Determiners

Forming the Plural

S-plural

In Portuguese, like in English, the most common way to form plurals is by adding an -s at the end of words, known as the s-plural. Let’s compare the same sentence in its singular and plural forms:

singular
O meu carro é escuro.
My car is dark.

plural
Os meus carros são escuros. 
My cars are dark.

As we’ve seen with gender, here too, articles, pronouns, and adjectives change their endings to agree in number with the noun they refer to.

Es-plural

To avoid consonant clusters at the end of words (which are rare in Portuguese), words ending in a consonant (other than -m or -l) form the plural with -es instead of just -s:

Um Português, dois Portugueses.
One Portuguese, two Portuguese.

Um aluguer, dois alugueres.
One rental, two rentals.

Further reading
Forming the Plural in Portuguese

Verbs and Subject Pronouns

Romance languages are known for their complex verb conjugations, and Portuguese is no exception. You’ll need to invest some time to become familiar with its verb system, but let me give you a head start.

Regular verbs

Not all is bad news when it comes to verbs. There are so-called regular verbs that follow a conjugational regular pattern. And there are plenty of them!

We can divide regular verbs into three groups based on their infinitive endings: -AR, -ER, and -IR. Here are examples for each group (with conjugational endings in bold, Present tense):

	ANDAR  (walk)	BEBER (drink)	PARTIR (leave)
eu (I)	ando	bebo	parto
tu (you)	andas	bebes	partes
ele, ela (he, she)	anda	bebe	parte
nós (we)	andamos	bebemos	partimos
vocês (you)	andam	bebem	partem
eles, elas (they)	andam	bebem	partem

Notice that the verb forms above retain their stems—and, beb, and part—while only the endings change according to the regular conjugation patterns.

Any verb in these groups will follow the same conjugation pattern. For example, the regular verbs casar (marry), falar (talk), and acabar (finish) follow the same conjugational pattern as andar.

Further reading
Portuguese Regular Verbs in the Present Tense

6 subject pronouns, 5 verb forms

You’ve probably noticed the 6 subject pronouns in the left column: 3 singular (eu, tu, ele/ela) and 3 plural (nós, vocês, eles/elas).

Importantly, while there are 6 subject pronouns, there are only 5 verb forms. This is because the 2nd- and 3rd-person plural share the same verb form. This rule applies to all verbs.

Redundant pronouns

In Portuguese, it’s common to drop subject pronouns. Since each verb form corresponds to a specific pronoun, the verb alone tells us who it refers to:

Hoje estou feliz = Hoje eu estou feliz
Today I’m happy
Hoje estás feliz = Hoje tu estás feliz
Today you’re happy

No “it”

Finally, there is no 3rd-person equivalent to the English it. For example, sentences that start with “it is” in English will begin with either estar or ser (to be) in the 3rd-person form (more on estar/ser below):

Está sol!
It is sunny!

É mau comer em demasia.
It is unwise to overeat.

Further reading
Portuguese Subject Pronouns

Present and past tenses

Let’s take a look at a few tenses of the irregular verb ter (to have):

	Presente	P. Perfeito	P. Imperfeito
eu	tenho	tive	tinha
tu	tens	tiveste	tinhas
ele, ela	tem	teve	tinha
nós	temos	tivemos	tinhamos
vocês	têm	tiveram	tinham
eles, elas	têm	tiveram	tinham

Above, you can see ter conjugated in the Present and Past tenses. We use the Present tense in the same way as in English. However, the Past tense in Portuguese has two variations: Pretérito Perfeito (Preterite) and Pretérito Imperfeito (Imperfect).

The Pretérito Perfeito is used for completed and punctual actions in the past, while the Pretérito Imperfeito describes ongoing or habitual actions in the past, or states of being:

P. Perfeito
Ontem tive dores de dentes.
Yesterday I had a toothache.

Imperfeito
Antigamente tinha dores dentes quase todos os dias.
Before, I used to have a toothache nearly every day.

Further reading
Portuguese Present Tense – Usage Rundown Anchored to English
Portuguese Perfect vs. Imperfect Tense: Know When to Use Either

The future tense 

In Portuguese, the most common way to express future time is similar to the English structure be going to. You’ll use the auxiliary verb ir (to go):

	Ir (go)
eu	vou
tu	vais
ele, ela	vai
nós	vamos
vocês	vão
eles, elas	vão

Here’s an example:

Eu vou fazer compras.
I am going to do some shopping.

As shown above, the auxiliary verb ir is followed by the main verb fazer (to do) in its infinitive form.

Further reading
Future Tense in Portuguese

Two “to be” verbs

In Portuguese, there are two verbs corresponding to the English verb to be: ser and estar:

	Ser	Estar
eu	sou	estou	am
tu	és	estás	are
ele, ela	é	está	is
nós	somos	estamos	are
vocês	são	estão	are
eles, elas	são	estão	are

So, what’s the difference between them? Simply put, ser is used to describe permanent states, while estar refers to temporary states:

Ser
O clima do Pólo Norte é frio.
The North Pole’s climate is cold.

Estar
Hoje está um dia bonito.
It is a fine day today.

You’ll probably agree that the first sentence implies a permanent state, while the second refers more to a temporary or circumstantial one.

Further reading
Portuguese Verbs ‘Ser’ and ‘Estar’- How and When to Use Either

Prepositions

Prepositions express relationships between elements in a sentence.

In Miguel is going to the grocery store, the preposition to shows movement toward a place.

In Portuguese, prepositions often combine with articles. Here are five key prepositions and their contractions with definite articles.

	o	a	os	as
em (place)	no	na	nos	nas
de (origin)	do	da	dos	das
a (movement)	ao	à	aos	às
por (movement)	pelo	pela	pelos	pelas
para (movement)	–	–	–	–

A few examples:

em	Estou no restaurante. I am at the restaurant. o restaurante → em + o = no
de	Sou dos Estados Unidos. I am from the United States.  os Estados Unidos → de + os = dos
a	A Sofia foi ao cinema. Sofia went to the cinema. o cinema → a + o = ao
por	Vou passar pelo supermercado. I will stop by the supermarket. o supermercado → por + o = pelo
para	Este comboio vai para Lisboa. This train is going to Lisboa.

Further reading
Top-5 Basic Portuguese Prepositions: An Inclusive Usage Rundown