Conjugation of portar

Portar is the everyday verb for carrying, bringing or taking something, wearing clothes or accessories, and having spent a period doing something. English divides these meanings among carry, bring, take, wear, and the perfect progressive; Catalan often lets the complement and situation identify the intended sense. Pronominal portar-se means “behave” or describes how people get along.

The conjugation is completely regular first conjugation: portar – porto – porti – porta – portat. There is no irregular stem, incoative extension, or defective restriction. The challenge is semantic and syntactic: choosing portar rather than the more literary or concise synonym dur, placing destination complements, and not confusing portar-se with the separate verb emportar-se “take away.”

Nonfinite forms

All compound tenses use haver + portat. With portar-se, the weak pronoun precedes a finite auxiliary: s'ha portat bé. The participle is normally invariable in the core perfect construction; its agreeing forms also function adjectivally, as in una tendència portada a l'extrem.

Indicative: simple and periphrastic tenses

The periphrastic past is the usual conversational past. The simple past is (formal/literary) in much Central Catalan, with continued regional spoken use. Note the accents in portàvem, portí, portà and the lack of one in future plural portarem.

Indicative compound tenses

The past anterior is (formal/literary). The periphrastic anterior is vaig haver portat, vas haver portat, va haver portat, vam haver portat, vau haver portat, van haver portat.

Subjunctive and imperative

The periphrastic subjunctive is (regional/formal). Affirmative commands take attached pronouns: porta-me'l. Negative commands place them before the verb: no me'l portis. See the full guide to imperative pronouns.

Meanings and characteristic constructions

With a direct object, portar covers physical transport and things worn on the body: portar una maleta, portar ulleres, portar barba. It can also mean “lead/cause” in portar a + infinitive or noun: això porta a pensar...; la carretera porta al poble. Here the preposition belongs to the destination or result, not to the direct object.

For an activity continuing up to now, portar + duration + gerund is common in contemporary speech: porto dos anys treballant aquí. Unlike an ordinary progressive, portar measures accumulated duration. The construction is standard, but it is relatively recent and less traditional than fa + duration + que; fa dos anys que treballo aquí is therefore the more conservative neutral choice, especially in edited prose. Do not use an infinitive after the duration.

Pronominal portar-se bé/malament means “behave well/badly.” With amb, it can describe a relationship: es porta bé amb els companys. The pattern portar-se + duration + amb algú instead states an age difference: em porto tres anys amb la meva germana. By contrast, emportar-se is a lexical verb meaning “take away” and must not be analyzed as merely portar-se with an extra pronoun.

(Regional: Valencian) first-person present porte, subjunctive porte..., and imperfect subjunctive portara... are standard. (Regional: Balearic) uses forms including port, portam, portau. Central porto, portem, porteu is the baseline. Dur is a widespread synonym, especially concise with clothing and possession, but it has an irregular paradigm and is not interchangeable in every idiom.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

Use portar flexibly for carrying, direction, wearing, duration, and causation. Use portar-se for behavior, but keep it distinct from emportar-se. Its morphology is entirely regular, compound forms use haver + portat, and destination/result a must not be mistaken for a preposition on the direct object.