Reflexive vs Non-Reflexive: BR Drift | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

Traditional Portuguese grammar marks a whole class of verbs as reflexive: levantar-se (to get up), lembrar-se (to remember), sentar-se (to sit down), esquecer-se (to forget). The -se is supposed to be obligatory. But spoken Brazilian Portuguese is in the middle of a slow, well-documented drift: it is dropping the reflexive se from many of these verbs, treating them as plain intransitive or transitive verbs. The result is that Eu levanto às sete — without any pronoun — is not an error in Brazil. It is how people actually talk. This page maps the drift so you can recognize both forms and produce the natural casual one.

For an English speaker this is intuitive in reverse: English has no reflexive on "I get up," "I sit down," or "I remember," so the dropped Brazilian form is actually closer to your instinct. The challenge is unlearning the textbook insistence on se that you may have been taught from European-leaning materials.

The drift in a nutshell

The verbs most affected are change-of-state verbs (getting up, sitting down, lying down) and a handful of common pronominal verbs (remembering, forgetting). In careful or written Brazilian — and obligatorily in European Portuguese — these keep se. In casual Brazilian speech, the se quietly vanishes.

Traditional / written	Casual BR (se dropped)	Meaning
levantar-se	levantar	to get up
sentar-se	sentar	to sit down
deitar-se	deitar	to lie down
lembrar-se (de)	lembrar (de)	to remember
esquecer-se (de)	esquecer	to forget

Change-of-state verbs: levantar, sentar, deitar

These describe the subject moving its own body into a new position. The standard grammar says they need se (levantar-se), but Brazilians routinely use them bare.

Eu levanto às sete pra ir malhar.

I get up at seven to go work out. (casual BR, no 'se')

Senta aqui do meu lado.

Sit here next to me. (casual BR, no 'se')

Ele deitou no sofá e dormiu na hora.

He lay down on the couch and fell asleep right away.

The written/careful versions still exist and are perfectly correct:

Os convidados sentaram-se à mesa às oito.

The guests sat down at the table at eight. (formal/written)

Levanto-me cedo nos dias úteis.

I get up early on weekdays. (formal/written)

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For natural casual Brazilian, drop the se on levantar, sentar, deitar: say Eu levanto, Senta aqui, Vou deitar. Keep the se (and enclisis) only when you are deliberately writing or speaking formally.

Pronominal verbs of memory: lembrar, esquecer

Here the drift is even more interesting because it interacts with prepositions. The traditional patterns are lembrar-se de algo (to remember something) and esquecer-se de algo (to forget something), both with se and the preposition de. Casual Brazilian offers two simplifications:

Drop the se but keep de: lembrar de algo, esquecer de algo.
Drop both se and de, treating the verb as plain transitive (especially with esquecer): esquecer algo, lembrar algo.

Você lembra do nome daquele restaurante?

Do you remember the name of that restaurant? (casual: 'lembrar de', no 'se')

Esqueci a chave dentro de casa de novo.

I forgot the key inside the house again. (casual: plain transitive)

Não esquece de comprar o pão!

Don't forget to buy the bread! (casual: 'esquecer de', no 'se')

The fully traditional versions remain available for formal use:

Não me lembro de tê-lo conhecido antes.

I don't recall having met him before. (formal: 'lembrar-se de')

Esqueci-me completamente do compromisso.

I completely forgot about the appointment. (formal: 'esquecer-se de')

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With lembrar and esquecer, there is a graceful middle ground many educated Brazilians use in writing: keep the preposition but drop the pronoun — lembrar de, esquecer de. It is less formal than lembrar-se de but more careful than dropping everything.

Why the drift happens

This is not sloppiness; it follows a clear logic. A reflexive pronoun normally signals "the subject acts on itself." But in levantar-se, you are not really acting on yourself the way you do in lavar-se (wash yourself) — levantar simply describes a change of position. The "self" meaning is so faded that speakers stop hearing the pronoun as meaningful and let it drop. The same goes for lembrar: you do not "remember yourself," so the se feels like dead weight.

English shows the endpoint of this exact process. Old and Middle English had reflexive constructions ("him gan resten" — he rested himself) that simplified to plain intransitives ("he rested"). Brazilian Portuguese is walking the same road a few centuries behind. Recognizing this helps you predict the drift: the more bleached the "self" meaning, the more droppable the se.

Verbs that KEEP 'se'

Crucially, the drift does not affect every reflexive verb. Some verbs keep se obligatorily even in the most casual Brazilian speech, because dropping it would either change the meaning or produce something that simply is not a word. These are the lexically pronominal verbs where se is welded to the verb's identity.

Verb	Meaning	Why 'se' stays
arrepender-se	to regret	arrepender alone isn't used
queixar-se	to complain	queixar alone isn't used
suicidar-se	to kill oneself	suicidar alone isn't used
atrever-se	to dare	atrever alone isn't used
orgulhar-se (de)	to be proud (of)	fixed pronominal

Eu me arrependo de não ter viajado mais.

I regret not having traveled more.

Ela se queixou do barulho a noite toda.

She complained about the noise all night.

Não me atrevo a contar isso pra ele.

I don't dare tell him that.

Try dropping the se from these and the sentence breaks: Eu arrependo and Ela queixou are not Portuguese. So the rule of thumb is: if the verb can stand on its own with a sensible meaning (levantar = "to raise something" / "to get up"), the se is droppable; if the verb only exists with se (arrepender-se), the se is mandatory.

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Quick test: can you use the verb with a regular object and no pronoun? Levantar a mão (raise your hand) ✓ — so the reflexive se is droppable. Arrepender — no such standalone verb ✗ — so se must stay.

A meaning warning: dropping 'se' can change the verb

Sometimes the bare verb and the reflexive verb mean different things. Be careful not to drop se when the meaning depends on it.

Ele levantou a caixa do chão.

He lifted the box off the floor. (transitive — no reflexive sense)

Ele levantou da cadeira.

He got up from the chair. (intransitive 'get up' — BR drops 'se')

In careful grammar the second would be levantou-se da cadeira. Brazilian speech drops the se but keeps the change-of-position meaning. With a direct object (a caixa), though, levantar is purely transitive and never had a reflexive to begin with. Context — presence or absence of an object — tells the two apart.

Common Mistakes

❌ Eu me levanto às sete. (insisted on in casual chat)

Not wrong, but unnecessarily formal; casual BR drops the 'se'.

✅ Eu levanto às sete.

I get up at seven.

❌ Eu arrependo de ter dito aquilo.

Incorrect — 'arrepender' has no standalone form; 'se' is mandatory.

✅ Eu me arrependo de ter dito aquilo.

I regret having said that.

❌ Ela queixou do serviço.

Incorrect — 'queixar' requires the pronoun: 'se queixou'.

✅ Ela se queixou do serviço.

She complained about the service.

❌ Senta-se aqui! (yelled casually to a friend)

Sounds stiff/European in casual BR speech.

✅ Senta aqui!

Sit here!

❌ Você lembra-se de mim? (casual greeting)

Sounds formal/European; casual BR drops the 'se'.

✅ Você lembra de mim?

Do you remember me?

Key Takeaways

Casual Brazilian Portuguese drops the reflexive se from change-of-state verbs (levantar, sentar, deitar) and memory verbs (lembrar, esquecer).
The dropped form is standard, natural BR speech — Eu levanto às sete, Senta aqui, Esqueci a chave.
The full se forms remain correct for formal/written register and are obligatory in European Portuguese.
Verbs with no standalone form — arrepender-se, queixar-se, suicidar-se, atrever-se — keep se always.
Test: if the verb works on its own with a sensible meaning, se is droppable; if it only exists with se, se is mandatory.

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