Tenses at a Glance | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

Portuguese has a large inventory of tenses, and a beginner can find the list intimidating. The reassuring truth is that you do not need all of them at once — and some of them you will never produce in speech at all, only recognize in books. This page is a map. It sorts every Brazilian Portuguese tense into three buckets: alive (used constantly), literary or formal only (you will read it but rarely say it), and technically correct but replaced in speech. Each tense links to its own dedicated page for the details.

How to read the labels

(living) — used routinely in everyday Brazilian speech and writing.
(formal/written) — correct and common in writing, less common in casual speech.
(literary only) — survives in literature, journalism, and set phrases, but is absent from ordinary conversation.
(replaced in speech) — grammatically standard, but Brazilians overwhelmingly prefer a periphrastic alternative.

Simple tenses

These use a single conjugated word, with no auxiliary verb.

Tense	Example (falar)	Meaning	Status in BR
Presente do indicativo	eu falo	I speak / am speaking	(living)
Pretérito perfeito	eu falei	I spoke	(living)
Pretérito imperfeito	eu falava	I used to speak / was speaking	(living)
Futuro do presente	eu falarei	I will speak	(replaced in speech)
Futuro do pretérito (conditional)	eu falaria	I would speak	(living)
Presente do subjuntivo	que eu fale	that I speak	(living)
Pretérito imperfeito do subjuntivo	se eu falasse	if I spoke	(living)
Futuro do subjuntivo	quando eu falar	when I speak	(living)
Imperativo	fale!	speak!	(living)
Pretérito mais-que-perfeito simples	eu falara	I had spoken	(literary only)

The future that nobody says

The synthetic future falarei ("I will speak") is real and standard, but in spoken Brazilian Portuguese it has been almost completely displaced by the periphrastic future vou falar ("I'm going to speak"). Estimates put the periphrastic form at over 90% of future references in speech. You will see falarei in writing, headlines, and formal registers, but using it constantly in conversation sounds bookish.

Amanhã eu vou falar com o médico sobre o resultado.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to the doctor about the result.

Algum dia eu falarei sobre tudo isso, mas não agora.

Someday I will speak about all this, but not now. (formal/written register)

The synthetic pluperfect is a ghost

The simple pluperfect falara ("I had spoken") survives only in literary and journalistic prose. No Brazilian says eu já falara com ele in conversation — they say eu já tinha falado com ele. Recognize it when reading Machado de Assis; do not reach for it when speaking.

Ele já partira quando a carta chegou.

He had already left when the letter arrived. (literary only — spoken as 'já tinha partido')

Compound tenses

These combine an auxiliary — usually ter (sometimes haver in formal writing) — with a participle or, for the future, a periphrasis. Brazilian Portuguese has a rich compound system, in some ways richer than English.

Tense	Example (fazer)	Meaning	Status in BR
Pretérito perfeito composto	tenho feito	I have been doing (repeatedly, lately)	(living)
Mais-que-perfeito composto	tinha feito	I had done	(living)
Futuro composto	vou ter feito / terei feito	I will have done	(living, periphrastic)
Condicional composto	teria feito	I would have done	(living)
Perfeito do subjuntivo	tenha feito	(that) I have done	(living)
Mais-que-perfeito do subjuntivo	tivesse feito	(if) I had done	(living)
Futuro composto do subjuntivo	tiver feito	(when) I have done	(living)

The tense English doesn't have a clean match for

The pretérito perfeito composto (tenho feito) is the trap that catches every English speaker. It looks exactly like the English present perfect ("I have done"), but it does not mean the same thing. In Brazilian Portuguese, tenho feito expresses a repeated or continuous action over a recent stretch of time leading up to now — not a single completed event.

Tenho trabalhado demais nas últimas semanas.

I've been working too much these past few weeks. (ongoing, repeated up to now)

Ultimamente, tenho dormido muito mal.

Lately, I've been sleeping really badly.

For a single completed action, English's "I have done" maps instead to the simple pretérito perfeito: Eu já fiz isso ("I already did that / I have done that"). English collapses both meanings into one tense; Portuguese keeps them apart. This distinction is important enough to have its own page — see pretérito perfeito vs. composto.

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If you can replace your English "have done" with "have been (repeatedly) doing," use tenho feito. If you mean a single finished event, use the simple fiz. This one substitution test resolves the majority of errors English speakers make with this tense.

The other compound tenses in action

Quando eu cheguei, eles já tinham saído.

When I arrived, they had already left.

Se eu tivesse estudado mais, teria passado na prova.

If I had studied more, I would have passed the exam.

Até o fim do ano, a gente vai ter terminado a reforma.

By the end of the year, we'll have finished the renovation.

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Notice the auxiliary is ter, not haver — in Brazilian Portuguese, ter is the everyday auxiliary for all compound tenses (tinha feito, tenho feito, teria feito). Haver as an auxiliary (havia feito) is correct but distinctly formal and written; you will rarely hear it in conversation.

The mesóclise paradigm — a museum piece

Portuguese has a remarkable construction called mesóclise, where a pronoun is inserted into the middle of a future or conditional verb: amar-te-ei ("I will love you"), dar-lhe-ia ("I would give him"). In Brazilian Portuguese this is completely dead in speech and survives only in the most formal legal and literary writing, where it can sound almost comically stiff. Brazilians say vou te amar or te amarei, never amar-te-ei. You should be able to recognize it on a page, but you will never need to produce it. See the mesóclise vestige for the curiosity in full.

Dir-lhe-ei a verdade quando chegar o momento.

I shall tell him the truth when the moment comes. (literary only — spoken as 'vou contar a verdade pra ele')

Common mistakes

❌ Eu tenho ido ao dentista ontem.

Incorrect — 'tenho ido' is for repeated/ongoing action, not a single past event; use the simple preterite.

✅ Eu fui ao dentista ontem.

I went to the dentist yesterday.

❌ Tenho terminado o relatório agora de manhã.

Incorrect — a single completed action takes the simple preterite, not the composto.

✅ Terminei o relatório agora de manhã.

I finished the report this morning.

❌ Amanhã falarei com meu chefe sobre as férias.

Not wrong grammatically, but the synthetic future sounds bookish in conversation.

✅ Amanhã vou falar com meu chefe sobre as férias.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to my boss about my vacation.

❌ Quando ele chegou, eu já falara com ele.

Incorrect for speech — the synthetic pluperfect is literary only.

✅ Quando ele chegou, eu já tinha falado com ele.

When he arrived, I had already spoken with him.

Key takeaways

The living core for speech: presente, pretérito perfeito, imperfeito, conditional, all three subjunctives, the imperative, and the vou + infinitive future.
The pretérito perfeito composto (tenho feito) means "have been doing repeatedly" — it is not the English present perfect. This is the highest-value distinction on the page.
The synthetic future falarei is correct but largely replaced by vou falar in speech.
The synthetic pluperfect falara and the entire mesóclise paradigm are literary relics — read them, but never say them.

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