A1 · The present tense
Irregular verbs in the present
Six verbs — and one of them, with its own family, has the only infinitives in the language ending in -or.
At a glance
- Remember
- A roof means: more than one.
- When
- Before the past
- The past
- Past linked to the present
- The present
- The future
- Completed in the future
The present — What holds at the moment, what is under way, or what is always the case.
- Form
- (eu) tenhoI have
- Signal words
- tenho
- vou
- venho
- ponho
- digo
- faço
- Trap
- Wrong:Os meus pais vem amanhã.Right:Os meus pais vêm amanhã.
Your turn
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The form
How the forms are built
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in Portuguese. The colours show what changes from one form to the next.
stem (regular) stem (irregular) person ending
| I have | (eu) tenho |
| you have | (tu) tens |
| he has, you have | (ele, ela, você) tem |
| we have | (nós) temos |
| you have, plural and formal | (vós) tendes |
| they have, you all have | (eles, elas, vocês) têm |
| I go | (eu) vou |
| you go | (tu) vais |
| he goes, you go | (ele, ela, você) vai |
| we go | (nós) vamos |
| you go, plural and formal | (vós) ides |
| they go, you all go | (eles, elas, vocês) vão |
| I come | (eu) venho |
| you come | (tu) vens |
| he comes, you come | (ele, ela, você) vem |
| we come | (nós) vimos |
| you come, plural and formal | (vós) vindes |
| they come, you all come | (eles, elas, vocês) vêm |
| I put | (eu) ponho |
| you put | (tu) pões |
| he puts, you put | (ele, ela, você) põe |
| we put | (nós) pomos |
| you put, plural and formal | (vós) pondes |
| they put, you all put | (eles, elas, vocês) põem |
| I say | (eu) digo |
| you say | (tu) dizes |
| he says, you say | (ele, ela, você) diz |
| we say | (nós) dizemos |
| you say, plural and formal | (vós) dizeis |
| they say, you all say | (eles, elas, vocês) dizem |
| I do | (eu) faço |
| you do | (tu) fazes |
| he does, you do | (ele, ela, você) faz |
| we do | (nós) fazemos |
| you do, plural and formal | (vós) fazeis |
| they do, you all do | (eles, elas, vocês) fazem |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
ter carries age, hunger and the perfect tense.
Tenho trinta anos.I am thirty years old.
vem is one person, vêm is several.
Eles vêm de comboio.They come by train.
pôr conjugates like an -er verb.
Ponho a mesa antes do jantar.I lay the table before dinner.
The I-form is often the only surprise.
Faço isso amanhã de manhã.I will do that tomorrow morning.
Example sentences
Tenho de sair mais cedo hoje.I have to leave earlier today.
Vamos ao mercado todas as manhãs.We go to the market every morning.
Eles vêm sempre no primeiro comboio.They always come on the first train.
O que é que fazes ao fim de semana?What do you do at the weekend?
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
The circumflex on vêm is not decoration, it is the plural. Ele vemis one personeles vêmis several In Brazil the two sound the same; in Portugal the nasal sound in vêm is doubled. The same goes for tem and têm. In writing, the little roof is the only thing saying how many there are — and English, which marks the singular instead and marks it audibly, gives no help at all.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
Six verbs are wholly irregular in the present, and all six are needed on the first day: ter (have), ir (go), vir (come), pôr (put), dizer (say), fazer (do, make).
Two of them look dangerously alike: vou is « I go » and venho is « I come », but in the third person plural they are vão and vêm — and a circumflex is the whole difference between vêm, « they come », and vem, « he comes ».
Pôr is worth a paragraph on its own. It and the verbs built on it are the only ones in Portuguese whose infinitive ends in -or. Pôr conjugates like an -er verb because it comes from an older poer. Every relative of it does the same: compor, supor, depor. English has irregular verbs by the hundred but nothing that is irregular in its infinitive.
The rest of the irregularity mostly sits in the I-form: faço, digo, tenho. Get that one and the other five often follow.
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The verbs on this page, in every form: fazer · vir · ser · ter · ir · sair · pôr