Welcome to the Verb Reference — your lookup desk for Brazilian Portuguese verbs. While the Verbs section teaches you how tenses and moods work conceptually, this section is where you come to find the actual conjugated forms of a specific verb and the practical notes you need to use it correctly. Think of the Verbs section as the textbook and the Verb Reference as the dictionary you keep open beside it.
What's in this section
The Verb Reference contains a dedicated page for each of the 100 most-frequent verbs in Brazilian Portuguese — the verbs you will encounter again and again in conversation, news, and writing — plus a set of index and reference pages that group verbs by behavior.
The frequency focus is deliberate. A handful of verbs do most of the work in any language. Master ser, estar, ter, fazer, ir, dizer, ver, dar, poder, querer and a few dozen more, and you can already say an enormous amount. The individual pages cover exactly these high-payoff verbs.
What each verb page gives you
Every individual verb page is built to the same template, so once you know the layout you can find anything fast. Each page includes:
1. Full conjugation in all living tenses
You get the complete paradigm in every tense and mood that is actually used in modern Brazilian Portuguese:
- Present (presente do indicativo)
- Preterite (pretérito perfeito) — the simple past
- Imperfect (pretérito imperfeito) — the "used to / was -ing" past
- Future (futuro do presente)
- Conditional (futuro do pretérito)
- Present subjunctive (presente do subjuntivo)
- Imperfect subjunctive (imperfeito do subjuntivo)
- Future subjunctive (futuro do subjuntivo) — alive and essential in Portuguese, unlike Spanish
- Imperative (imperativo) — affirmative and negative
- Gerund (gerúndio), past participle (particípio), and personal infinitive (infinitivo pessoal)
The tables show Brazilian usage: there is an eu, você/ele/ela, nós, vocês/eles/elas layout, and a tu row where relevant. We do not include the vós row — it is archaic in Brazil and would only clutter the table.
2. Brazilian usage notes (with PT-PT contrasts)
Conjugation tables tell you the forms; the usage notes tell you what to do with them. Each page flags how the verb behaves in Brazil specifically, and — where it matters — how that differs from European Portuguese (PT-PT). For example, Brazilians overwhelmingly prefer the estar + gerúndio progressive (estou fazendo), while European Portuguese uses estar a + infinitive (estou a fazer).
Estou fazendo o jantar agora.
I'm making dinner right now. (BR progressive: estar + gerúndio)
A gente vai resolver isso depois.
We'll sort that out later. (BR colloquial 'a gente' + singular verb)
3. Common prepositions and collocations
Many verbs lock onto a specific preposition, and getting it wrong is one of the most common learner errors. The verb pages list the prepositions and the phrases the verb typically appears in, so you learn the verb and its "partner word" together.
Eu gosto muito de música brasileira.
I really like Brazilian music. (gostar always takes 'de')
Ela precisa de ajuda com a mudança.
She needs help with the move. (precisar de)
A gente assistiu ao jogo no bar.
We watched the game at the bar. (assistir a, in the 'watch' sense)
4. False-friend warnings
Where a verb looks like an English word but means something else, the page warns you. These traps cause real, embarrassing errors, so they're called out prominently.
Pretendo viajar em julho.
I intend to travel in July. (pretender = 'to intend', NOT 'to pretend')
Ele puxou conversa comigo.
He struck up a conversation with me. (puxar = 'to pull', NOT 'to push')
5. Five or more example sentences in Brazilian context
Finally, every page gives you the verb in natural, Brazilian-sounding sentences — the kind a real speaker would actually say — so you see the conjugations doing their job in living language.
Você consegue me ligar mais tarde?
Can you call me later? (conseguir + infinitive = 'to manage/be able to')
Faz três anos que eu moro aqui.
I've lived here for three years. (BR 'faz + time' construction)
The index and reference pages
Alongside the individual verbs, the section includes grouped reference pages that cut across the alphabet:
| Reference page | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Conjugation patterns summary | All regular -ar/-er/-ir endings, side by side, in one place |
| Most common 50 | The highest-frequency verbs in priority order |
| Verb frequency list | The fuller ranked list to guide your study order |
| Irregular verb groups | Irregular verbs clustered by the pattern they share |
| Verb + preposition list | Which verbs take de, a, com, em, and so on |
| False-friend verbs | Verbs that don't mean what they look like |
| Double-participle list | Verbs with two participles (pago/pagado, etc.) |
| Defective verb list | Verbs missing certain forms |
How this differs from looking up English verbs
English verb "conjugation" is trivial — most verbs have just four or five forms (talk, talks, talked, talking). A Portuguese verb has dozens of distinct forms across its tenses and moods, and the ending tells you who is doing the action and when. That is why a reference like this exists at all: there is genuinely a lot to look up. The good news, covered in the conjugation patterns summary, is that the regular endings are highly systematic — fewer than 50 distinct endings cover the entire regular system across all three verb classes.
How to use this section
- Learning a new verb? Open its page, look at the present and preterite first (the two tenses you'll use most), read the usage notes and prepositions, then study the example sentences.
- Checking a form mid-sentence? Jump straight to the conjugation table.
- Planning what to study? Work down the frequency list rather than the alphabet.
- Stuck on irregulars? The irregular verb groups page shows that many "irregular" verbs share a pattern, so you learn them in families.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu gosto música brasileira.
Wrong — gostar requires 'de'.
✅ Eu gosto de música brasileira.
I like Brazilian music.
❌ Estou a fazer o jantar.
European Portuguese, not Brazilian — sounds foreign in Brazil.
✅ Estou fazendo o jantar.
I'm making dinner. (Brazilian progressive)
❌ Eu pretendo que eu falo português. (using 'pretender' to mean 'pretend')
False friend — pretender means 'to intend'.
✅ Eu finjo que falo português / Pretendo aprender português.
I pretend that I speak Portuguese / I intend to learn Portuguese.
❌ Learning verbs alphabetically from abrir to voltar.
Inefficient — you spend time on rare verbs before frequent ones.
✅ Learning verbs in frequency order, starting with ser, estar, ter, ir.
The high-payoff strategy.
Key Takeaways
- This section is a lookup reference: one page per high-frequency verb, plus grouped index pages.
- Each verb page gives full conjugations (all living tenses, BR layout, no vós), usage notes with PT-PT contrasts, prepositions/collocations, false-friend warnings, and 5+ natural examples.
- Study verbs in frequency order, not alphabetically.
- The regular endings are systematic — see the conjugation patterns summary to learn them once and reuse them everywhere.
Now practice Portuguese
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Standard Conjugation Patterns SummaryA2 — All the regular -ar, -er, and -ir endings across every tense, side by side, so you can learn the whole system at once.
- The 50 Most Common BR VerbsA1 — The 50 most frequent Brazilian Portuguese verbs by corpus frequency, with meanings and a sample present-tense form — your first big study target.
- Verb Frequency List (Top 100)A1 — The 100 most frequent Brazilian Portuguese verbs by corpus frequency — a learning checklist with rank, infinitive, and English gloss.
- Irregular Verb GroupsA2 — A map of Brazilian Portuguese irregularity by type — suppletion, -g- insertion, stem-vowel changes, spelling-only changes, and contracted future stems.
- The Brazilian Portuguese Verb SystemA1 — A map of the Brazilian Portuguese verb system — conjugation classes, moods, tenses, and the features English speakers find hardest.
- Tenses at a GlanceA2 — A complete map of Brazilian Portuguese verb tenses — which are alive in everyday speech, which survive only in writing, and which English simply lacks.