Portuguese Regular Verbs in the Present Tense

Portuguese verbs can feel more cumbersome to learn than, say, English. Being a Romance language, Portuguese isn’t short of verb forms to keep track of.

Fortunately, there are plenty of regular verbs as well—that is, verbs following a regular pattern in their conjugation. This means you can learn and apply a conjugation “formula” that works with any regular verb.

In Portuguese, regular verbs are distributed into 3 conjugation groups:

	1st conjugation: -AR (Acordar)	2nd conjugation: -ER (Mexer)	3rd conjugation: -IR (Partir)
Eu	acordo	mexo	parto
Tu	acordas	mexes	partes
Ele, ela, Você	acorda	mexe	parte
Nós	acordamos	mexemos	partimos
Vocês	acordam	mexem	partem
Eles, elas	acordam	mexem	partem

In what follows, I’ll walk you through the conjugation patterns in greater detail. Specifically, we’ll look at some minor spelling adjustments that sometimes occur in the first person of the present tense. Read on.

Regular conjugation

To conjugate any regular verb in the present tense, remove the ending of the infinitive – either –ar, –er, or –ir – and add, instead, the following endings to the stem (marked in bold):

	1st conjugation: -AR (Pensar)	2nd conjugation: -ER (Vender)	3rd conjugation: -IR (Abrir)
Eu	penso	vendo	abro
Tu	pensas	vendes	abres
Ele, ela, você	pensa	vende	abre
Nós	pensamos	vendemos	abrimos
Vocês (vós)	pensam (pensais)	vendem (vendeis)	abrem (abris)
Eles, elas	pensam	vendem	abrem

Other commonly used regular verbs	ficar, andar, falar, chegar, costumar, gostar, morar	comer, beber, querer, dever, correr, viver	partir, existir, sentir, dormir

💡In modern Portuguese, the 2nd- and 3rd-person plural share the same form. You may occasionally hear the outdated vós forms (shown in parentheses), but since their usage is extremely rare, you don’t really need to learn them.

Semi-Regular: Minor spelling adjustments

There are a few verbs in the -ir group whose conjugation follows the above pattern except for the first person – these are verbs containing either an e or an o in their stem.

So, the e and o become i and u (respectively) in the first person. Here are a few examples:

	e to i
despir	eu dispo, tu despes, ele despe, etc.
mentir	eu minto, tu mentes, ele mente, etc.
preferir	eu prefiro, tu preferes, ele, prefere, etc
	o to u
cobrir	eu cubro, tu cobres, ele, cobre, etc.
dormir	eu durmo, tu dormes, ele dorme, etc.
tossir	eu tusso, tu tosses, ele tosse, etc.

Also, if the stem of an -er or -ir verb ends in -c, -g, or –gu, these consonants change to -ç, -j, and g respectively in the first person of the present tense to preserve the original sound*:

	c to ç
conhecer	eu conheço, tu conheces, ele conhece, etc.
parecer	eu pareço, tu pareces, ele parece, etc.
	g to j
fugir	eu fujo, tu foges, ele foge, etc.
agir	eu ajo, tu ages, ele age, etc.
	gu to g
conseguir	eu consigo, tu consegues, ele consegue, etc.
seguir	eu sigo, tu segues, ele segue, etc.

* Learn more about sound-and-spelling patterns in Portuguese.

10 non-regular verbs you want to learn

There are indeed many regular verbs in the present tense (with the 1st-conjugation group being the largest). However, some of the most widely used Portuguese verbs are irregular.

Here’re 10 Portuguese irregular verbs you should know by heart:

ser (be)	sou, és, é, somos, são
estar (be)	estou, estás, está, estamos, estão
ter (have)	tenho, tens, tem, temos, têm
haver (there is)	há
dar (give)	dou, dás, dá, damos, dão
pôr (put)	ponho, pões, põe, pomos, põem
ir (go)	vou, vais, vai, vamos, vão
fazer (do, make)	faço, fazes, faz, fazemos, fazem
poder (can)	posso, podes, pode, podemos, podem
saber (know)	sei, sabes, sabe, sabemos, sabem

🔎 Portuguese Must-Know Irregular Verbs

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