An impersonal sentence has no subject at all — no one and nothing performs the action, or the doer is irrelevant or unknown. Brazilian Portuguese handles these with no fuss, and the single biggest adjustment for an English speaker is this: there is no dummy subject. English is forced to plug a meaningless "it" or "there" into the subject slot ("It is raining," "There is a problem"). Portuguese leaves the slot genuinely empty. Chove. — "(It) is raining." The verb stands alone.
No dummy subject — the core difference
English grammar forbids a subjectless finite clause, so it invents a placeholder: it rains, it is late, there is milk. These "its" and "theres" refer to nothing. Portuguese has no such requirement. The verb carries third-person-singular morphology by default and simply has no subject.
Choveu a noite inteira.
It rained all night long.
É tarde, vamos dormir.
It's late, let's go to sleep.
Tem um problema com o pedido.
There's a problem with the order.
In none of these is there a word translating "it" or "there." If you ever feel the need to insert one, suppress it — that instinct is pure English transfer.
Weather
Weather verbs are the purest impersonals. They come in three patterns.
Single weather verbs — chover (to rain), nevar (to snow), ventar (to be windy), anoitecer (to get dark), amanhecer (to dawn). These are inherently subjectless.
Chove muito aqui no verão.
It rains a lot here in the summer.
Anoiteceu cedo no inverno.
It got dark early in the winter.
"Faz" + noun — for temperature and weather conditions, BR uses fazer impersonally: faz calor (it's hot), faz frio (it's cold), faz sol (it's sunny).
Faz muito calor em Salvador o ano todo.
It's very hot in Salvador all year round.
Ontem fez um frio danado.
It was incredibly cold yesterday.
"Está" + adjective — for a current state, estar + adjective: está frio (it's cold right now), está nublado (it's cloudy).
Tá frio hoje, leva um casaco.
It's cold today, take a jacket.
Existence
Existential sentences are impersonal too: nothing is the subject, and tem (informal) or há (formal) introduces what exists. Both are invariable. This is covered in depth on "There is/are": Tem and Há, but the key point here is that these belong to the same subjectless family.
Tem muita gente esperando.
There are a lot of people waiting.
Não há mais ingressos.
There are no more tickets.
Time
Telling the time is impersonal. With ser, the verb agrees not with a subject but with the hour expressed — singular for one o'clock and noon/midnight, plural for the others. There is no "it."
É uma hora da tarde.
It's one in the afternoon.
São três horas, já podemos ir.
It's three o'clock, we can go now.
Já é meia-noite.
It's already midnight.
This agreement is a small surprise: São três horas uses plural são because "three hours" is plural, even though there is no subject in the English sense. English keeps the frozen singular "it is" regardless.
The "se" impersonal
To say "one does X" / "people do X" / "you do X" generically — with no specific doer — BR attaches se to a third-person-singular verb. This is the generic-statement impersonal.
Vive-se bem aqui no interior.
One lives well here in the countryside.
Trabalha-se muito nessa cidade.
People work a lot in this city.
Como se chega ao centro?
How does one get to downtown?
The verb stays singular and there is no subject; se signals that the doer is generic. This is the closest BR equivalent to English impersonal "one" or generic "you," but far more natural and common than English "one." See The impersonal 'se'.
The third-person-plural impersonal
A bare third-person-plural verb, with no pronoun and no identified subject, conveys "someone" / "they" / "people" — the doer exists but is unspecified.
Bateram na porta agora há pouco.
Someone knocked at the door just now.
Dizem que vai aumentar o preço da gasolina.
They say gas prices are going to go up.
Roubaram o carro do meu vizinho ontem.
Someone stole my neighbor's car yesterday.
Crucially, bateram, dizem, and roubaram have no expressed subject — and you must not add one. Eles dizem would mean "they (specific people) say," which is personal, not impersonal. The pronoun-less plural is what makes it generic. See Impersonal with 3rd person plural.
The generic "a gente"
In everyday speech, a gente ("we / people in general") serves as a soft generic subject. Grammatically it is singular (it takes third-person-singular agreement) even though it means "we" or "people."
A gente nunca sabe o que vai acontecer.
You never know what's going to happen.
Aqui a gente come bem e gasta pouco.
Here you eat well and spend little.
Note sabe and come, not sabemos/comemos: a gente always takes the singular. Strictly speaking a gente is a subject, so this is the least "impersonal" of the group — but functionally it does the same generic job as the se and 3pl impersonals, which is why it belongs here. See The impersonal 'a gente'.
Why Portuguese can do without "it"
The deep reason BR needs no dummy subject is that Portuguese is a null-subject (pro-drop) language: it can leave the subject position empty whenever person and number are recoverable from the verb or context. Falo português needs no eu because -o already says "I." When there genuinely is no subject — rain, time, existence — the same machinery simply leaves the slot empty, with the verb defaulting to third-person singular (or agreeing with the hour, in time expressions). English, lacking pro-drop, cannot tolerate an empty subject slot and must fill it with a meaningless it or there. So every English dummy subject corresponds to nothing in Portuguese. Learning to delete that it is one of the clearest signs you have stopped thinking in English.
Common mistakes
❌ Ele está chovendo lá fora.
Incorrect — weather is subjectless; never add 'ele/it'.
✅ Está chovendo lá fora.
It's raining outside.
❌ É três horas.
Incorrect — 'ser' agrees with the hour; three o'clock is plural.
✅ São três horas.
It's three o'clock.
❌ Eles bateram na porta. (meaning 'someone knocked')
Incorrect for the impersonal — adding 'eles' makes it specific people.
✅ Bateram na porta.
Someone knocked at the door.
❌ A gente sabemos o que fazer.
Incorrect — 'a gente' takes singular agreement.
✅ A gente sabe o que fazer.
We know what to do.
❌ Faz frio. Está calor. (mismatched collocations)
Reminder — pair 'faz' with nouns and 'está' with adjective states.
✅ Faz frio. / Está calor.
It's cold. / It's hot (right now).
Key takeaways
- Impersonal sentences have no subject — never insert an English-style "it" or "there."
- Weather: bare verbs (chove), faz
- noun (faz calor), está
- adjective (está frio).
- noun (faz calor), está
- Existence: tem / há, both invariable.
- Time: ser agrees with the hour — é uma hora, são três horas.
- Generics: se impersonal (vive-se bem), bare 3rd-plural (dizem que...), and a gente (singular agreement).
- It all works because Portuguese is pro-drop: an empty subject slot is grammatical.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Se-ImpersonalB1 — The impersonal se for generic 'one/people' — trabalha-se muito, como se diz — and how it differs from the se-passive.
- Impersonal Haver, Fazer, SerA2 — How haver, fazer, and ser work as subjectless impersonal verbs for existence, time, and weather — and why Brazilians reach for tem and faz first.
- A Gente in Impersonal/Generic UseA2 — How a gente works as a generic 'one/people' pronoun (distinct from its 'we' meaning), why the verb stays third-person singular, and how context tells the two apart.
- Impersonal 3pl (Falam que...)B1 — The third-person plural with no subject for 'they/people/someone' — falam que, dizem que, bateram na porta — Brazil's everyday way to report hearsay and unknown agents.
- 'There is/are': Tem and HáA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese expresses existence with the invariable everyday 'tem', the formal 'há', and 'existir' — plus past and future forms.