Há vs. Por vs. Durante 

Portuguese students often struggle with when to use “há”, “por”, or “durante” to express time duration. Let’s break it down into four different temporal contexts to help you discern between them. Read on.

1. Durative Action /Present

We say “há” followed by any given time interval to express the time duration of an action that has been unfolding up to the present moment (and still ongoing in the present):

Eu estou a escrever este artigo há 20 minutos.
I’ve been writing this article for 20 minutes.

Note that the sentence is in the Present tense (“estou a escrever”). The English equivalent, on the other hand, usually uses the Present Perfect Continuous (“I’ve been writing”) and the preposition “for” preceding the time interval (“for 20 minutes”).

2. Situated Action /Past

We also say “há” followed by any given time interval to situate a point or action in the past: