A2 · The passive
The participle: falado, feito, escrito
-ado and -ido — and a good dozen verbs that do it differently.
At a glance
- Remember
- -ado and -ido, but feito, dito, visto, escrito, aberto, posto, vindo.
- Form
- faladospoken
- Signal words
- -ado
- -ido
- feito
- dito
- visto
- escrito
- Trap
- Wrong:Já tinha fazido os trabalhos de casa.Right:Já tinha feito os trabalhos de casa.
Your turn
5 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
| spoken | falado |
| eaten | comido |
| done, made | feito |
| said | dito |
| seen | visto |
| written | escrito |
| opened | aberto |
| put, placed | posto |
| come | vindo |
| paid | pago |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
Regularly -ar becomes -ado, -er and -ir become -ido.
Ele tinha vendido o carro.He had sold the car.
feito, dito, visto, escrito, aberto, posto and vindo have to be learned.
Quem tinha escrito isto?Who had written this?
Unchanged after ter, agreeing after ser and estar.
As janelas estão abertas.The windows are open.
With two participles the long one goes after ter, the short one after ser and estar.
A proposta foi aceite ontem.The proposal was accepted yesterday.
Example sentences
O jantar já está feito.Dinner is already made.
Nunca tinha visto o mar.I had never seen the sea.
A loja está aberta até às sete.The shop is open until seven.
Os livros foram postos na estante.The books were put on the shelf.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
It is the same trap as « doed » or « writed » in English. Portuguese builds the participle with the ending alone — and for the most frequent verbs not even with that. Whoever treats fazer as regular builds fazido, a word that does not exist. The same goes for dizido, vido and escrevido.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
The participle is built regularly from the stem: -ar becomes -ado, -er and -ir become -ido. falar → falado, comer → comido, partir → partido. Where English has a single ending, « -ed », Portuguese has two, and the infinitive decides which.
A small group of very frequent verbs has a participle of its own, and it has to be learned, just as « done », « said », « seen » and « written » have to be learned in English: fazer → feito, dizer → dito, ver → visto, escrever → escrito, abrir → aberto, pôr → posto, vir → vindo, cobrir → coberto. Derived verbs follow them: descobrir → descoberto, propor → proposto, desfazer → desfeito.
After ter the participle stays unchanged: tinha escrito, tínhamos feito. After ser and estar, and beside a noun, it is an adjective and agrees in gender and number: a carta foi escrita, as portas estão abertas. English participles never change, so the second half is the one to watch.
Some verbs have two participles. The long form comes after ter, the short one after ser and estar: tinham aceitado, but a proposta foi aceite; tinha acendido, but a luz está acesa. With pagar, ganhar and gastar the short form has won in Portugal after ter as well: tinha pago, tinha ganho, tinha gasto.
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