English is famous for phrasal verbs — give up, take off, run into, put up with — where a common verb plus a particle produces a meaning you could never guess from the parts. Portuguese learners often ask whether Portuguese has the same thing. The honest answer: sort of, but far less. Brazilian Portuguese has verb-plus-preposition combinations with idiomatic meanings (dar em, cair em, bater em), but the system is much less productive than English's. You cannot freely invent new ones, and the existing ones are best learned individually, as fixed idioms — exactly the same advice you'd give an English learner facing "put up with."
Why Portuguese has fewer
English phrasal verbs come from a Germanic feature — separable particles that modify a verb's meaning. The Romance languages, including Portuguese, mostly absorbed those nuances into prefixes (pôr → compor, dispor, supor) or into distinct verbs (desistir, decolar, encontrar). What's left is a smaller set of true verb-particle idioms, plus a lively layer of colloquial and slang expressions that behave like phrasal verbs.
Core idiomatic verb + preposition combinations
These are the workhorses. Each is a single unit of meaning; the literal sense of the parts won't get you there.
| Expression | Idiomatic meaning | Literal parts |
|---|---|---|
| dar em | to lead to / end up as | "give in" |
| dar para | to be possible / to be enough | "give for" |
| cair em | to fall for / be tricked by | "fall in" |
| bater em | to hit (someone) | "beat on" |
| pisar em | to step on / mistreat | "step on" |
| passar por | to go through / pass as | "pass by" |
| acabar com | to put an end to / destroy | "finish with" |
| pegar no pé | to nag / pick on someone | "grab on the foot" |
dar em / dar para
Tanta discussão acabou dando em briga.
So much arguing ended up leading to a fight.
Dá para você me passar o sal?
Can you pass me the salt? (lit. 'does it give for you...')
Não dá para terminar isso hoje.
There's no way to finish this today.
Dá para...? is one of the most useful conversational frames in Brazilian Portuguese — a soft, idiomatic way to say "is it possible to...?" or "could you...?"
cair em
Ele caiu no golpe e perdeu todo o dinheiro.
He fell for the scam and lost all his money.
passar por
A gente passou por momentos difíceis no ano passado.
We went through some hard times last year.
Com esse sotaque, ele facilmente passa por italiano.
With that accent, he easily passes for Italian.
bater em / pisar em
Não se deve bater em criança.
One shouldn't hit children.
Ela sente que o chefe vive pisando nela.
She feels her boss is always walking all over her.
Slang and colloquial constructions (informal)
This is where Brazilian Portuguese gets genuinely playful. These are informal and very common in speech; some are regional or generational, so use them where the register fits.
| Expression | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|
| cair fora | to clear out, beat it, leave | (informal/slang) |
| dar uma sumida | to disappear for a while | (informal) |
| bater um papo | to have a chat | (informal) |
| dar um jeito | to find a way / sort it out | (informal, very common) |
| pegar leve | to take it easy / go easy | (informal) |
| dar mole | to slip up / let one's guard down | (informal/slang) |
Vamos cair fora daqui, essa festa tá um saco.
Let's get out of here, this party is boring.
Você deu uma sumida! Sumiu por uns dois meses.
You disappeared! You were gone for like two months.
Bora bater um papo no fim de semana?
Wanna have a chat this weekend?
Relaxa, a gente dá um jeito nisso.
Relax, we'll figure it out.
Dar um jeito deserves special mention: it encodes the famous Brazilian jeitinho — the improvised, get-it-done-somehow solution — and is one of the most culturally loaded verb phrases in the language.
The English-to-Portuguese mismatch
The most important takeaway is structural: many English phrasal verbs become a single Portuguese verb, not an idiom.
| English phrasal verb | Brazilian Portuguese |
|---|---|
| to give up | desistir |
| to take off (plane) | decolar |
| to run into (meet) | encontrar / esbarrar com |
| to put up with | aguentar / suportar |
| to find out | descobrir / ficar sabendo |
| to throw away | jogar fora |
| to wake up | acordar |
Note jogar fora ("to throw away") and ficar sabendo ("to find out") — two cases where Portuguese does use a multi-word construction, showing the system isn't empty, just smaller.
Pode jogar fora essas revistas velhas.
You can throw away these old magazines.
Fiquei sabendo que você vai se mudar.
I found out you're going to move.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu dou para cima do meu emprego.
Incorrect — 'give up' is not a calque; the verb is desistir de.
✅ Eu desisti do meu emprego.
I gave up my job / quit my job.
❌ O avião tomou fora às oito horas.
Incorrect — 'take off' (plane) is decolar, not a literal calque.
✅ O avião decolou às oito horas.
The plane took off at eight o'clock.
❌ Não consigo colocar para cima com ele.
Incorrect — 'put up with' is aguentar/suportar, a single verb.
✅ Não consigo aguentar ele. / Não o suporto.
I can't put up with him.
❌ Vamos cair fora — said in a formal job interview.
Wrong register — cair fora is slang and out of place in formal settings.
✅ Vamos sair / Vamos nos retirar. (formal)
Let's leave.
❌ Joga longe esse lixo.
Unidiomatic — the fixed expression is jogar FORA, not jogar longe.
✅ Joga fora esse lixo.
Throw out that trash.
Key Takeaways
- Brazilian Portuguese has verb-particle idioms (dar em, cair em, passar por), but the system is far less productive than English's.
- Treat each one as a fixed unit — the literal parts won't reveal the meaning.
- Many English phrasal verbs map to a single Portuguese verb (give up → desistir, take off → decolar).
- The slang layer (cair fora, dar uma sumida, dar um jeito) is rich but informal — match it to the register.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Verbs and Their Required PrepositionsB1 — A comprehensive reference list of Brazilian Portuguese verbs grouped by the preposition each one requires before its object.
- Verbs with Required PrepositionsB1 — The most important Brazilian Portuguese verb + preposition pairs — gostar de, assistir a, pensar em, contar com, lutar por — grouped by preposition, with notes on which ones colloquial speech drops.
- Prepositions Required by VerbsB1 — Verb government in Brazilian Portuguese (regência verbal): which verbs demand de, a, em, com, or por before their object — gostar de, assistir a, pensar em, sonhar com — and how everyday speech bends the prescriptive rules.
- DarA1 — Full conjugation and usage reference for 'dar' (to give) — a highly irregular -ar verb at the heart of dozens of everyday Brazilian idioms.
- CairA2 — Full conjugation and usage of cair — to fall — with its tricky í-accented hiatus forms and the everyday idioms cair em, cair bem, cair fora, and cair a ficha.
- PassarA1 — The regular -ar verb 'passar' and its many meanings: to pass, to spend time, to happen, to pass by, to iron — plus the constructions 'passar por', 'passar a + infinitive', and 'passar mal'.