Portuguese Past Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English

In this article, we will look at the Portuguese equivalents of the English Past Simple, Past Continuous, and Past Perfect tenses.

Here are a couple of analogous reads about the Present and Future tenses:
Portuguese Present Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English
Portuguese Future Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English

I will be using the verb dormir (sleep) for all the examples below:

	Dormir | Preterite Pretérito Perfeito	Dormir | Imperfect Pretérito Imperfeito
Eu	dormi	dormia
Tu	dormiste	dormias
Ele, ela	dormiu	dormia
Nós	dormimos	dormíamos
Vocês Eles, elas	dormiram	dormiam
Present participle Gerúndio	dormindo
Past participle Particípio passado	dormido

Past Simple

There are two Past tenses* that often map onto the English Past simple, namely the Preterite (Pretérito Perfeito) and the Imperfect (Pretérito Imperfeito).

This often confuses learners whose native tongue doesn’t have this tense nuance (English included). Let’s then try to wrap our heads around it.

* These are technically called “verb aspects” as there’s only one Past tense.

Preterite – Completed Actions

We use the Preterite to talk about past actions that are completed and well delimited in time: 

A Raquel dormiu até às 10 da manhã. Raquel slept until 10 in the morning.

As you can see above, the Preterite (dormiu) translates to the Past Simple (slept) in English.

Further, we can also use a compound verb structure with the auxiliary verb estar in the Preterite followed by the preposition a and the action verb in the Infinitive without any substantial change in meaning:

A Raquel esteve a dormir até às 10 da manhã. Raquel was sleeping until 10 in the morning.

Finally, note that we also use the Preterite in situations where, in English, we use the Present Perfect: