English loves the passive voice. The car was stolen, the meeting was cancelled, the bridge was built in 1932 — speakers reach for it constantly, in speech and in writing, without a second thought. Brazilian Portuguese has the exact same construction (the ser-passive: O carro foi roubado) and it is perfectly grammatical. Yet a Brazilian, in ordinary conversation, will very often not use it. They will rephrase the sentence into the active voice, even when there is no clear actor to mention. This page is about that pragmatic preference: why it exists, where the passive survives, and — most importantly for an English speaker — how to stop over-producing the passive when you translate.
The ser-passive exists, but it feels written
First, the construction itself. The ser-passive is formed exactly as in English: a form of ser plus the past participle, which agrees in gender and number with the subject. The agent, if mentioned, is introduced by por.
A ponte foi construída em 1932.
The bridge was built in 1932.
Os documentos foram assinados pelo diretor.
The documents were signed by the director.
These are correct and natural — in writing. The problem is that the same sentence dropped into casual speech sounds stiff, like someone reading a press release aloud. Brazilians sense the ser-passive as belonging to a higher, more formal register. So in conversation they reorganize.
What Brazilians say instead: active voice
The default move is to make the sentence active and put a verb in the third person plural with no stated subject — the so-called impersonal 3pl. English has no clean equivalent; the closest is the vague "they," as in "they cancelled the meeting." Brazilian uses this constantly, and unlike English "they," it carries no implication that you know who "they" are.
Roubaram meu carro ontem à noite.
My car was stolen last night. (lit. they stole my car)
Cancelaram a reunião de novo.
The meeting got cancelled again. (lit. they cancelled the meeting)
Quebraram a janela da sala.
The living-room window got broken. (lit. they broke the window)
Notice that none of the English translations name an actor, and neither do the Portuguese sentences — but the Portuguese keeps the verb active and simply leaves the doer unspecified by using the bare plural. This is the single most important pattern to internalize: the natural Brazilian equivalent of an English agentless passive is usually an active verb in the impersonal 3pl.
The other common rephrasing is the passive-se (se construction), which is more typical of written and semi-formal registers: Vende-se casa ("house for sale"), Falam-se três línguas aqui / Falam-se vários idiomas ("several languages are spoken here"). This keeps the focus off any actor while staying more elegant than the bare 3pl, which is why you see it on signs and in instructions.
Aqui se fala português e espanhol.
Portuguese and Spanish are spoken here.
Why Brazilians avoid the ser-passive
There are three reinforcing reasons, and understanding them lets you predict the preference rather than memorize it case by case.
1. The ser-passive feels formal and bookish. Registers in Brazilian Portuguese diverge sharply between speech and writing — far more than in English. The ser-passive sits on the written side of that divide, so reaching for it in conversation imports a written texture that sounds off.
2. Brazilian likes to foreground actors, even hypothetical ones. The impersonal 3pl keeps a doer in the verb (someone did this) without committing to who. Brazilian discourse is comfortable with this vague-but-active framing, whereas the passive deletes the doer from the syntax entirely. Saying Roubaram meu carro keeps the event as something done to you by someone — which is how the speaker experiences it.
3. The ser-passive carries extra agreement morphology. The participle must agree in gender and number with the subject (foi construída, foram assinados), adding a layer of inflection the active alternatives avoid or simplify. The bare 3pl active is morphologically lighter, and lighter wins in speech.
Dizem que vai chover amanhã.
They say it's going to rain tomorrow. / It's said that it'll rain tomorrow.
That last example is the natural Brazilian rendering of "it is said that…" — not É dito que…, which is grammatical but stilted to the point of sounding translated.
Where the ser-passive does survive
The passive is not dying; it lives comfortably in specific registers, and using it there is exactly right.
News and headlines. Brazilian journalism uses the ser-passive heavily, often clipping the verb to the bare participle in headlines.
Suspeito é preso após assalto a banco em São Paulo.
Suspect arrested after bank robbery in São Paulo. (headline)
Três pessoas foram resgatadas do incêndio.
Three people were rescued from the fire. (news report)
Formal announcements and official notices.
A reunião foi cancelada por motivos técnicos.
The meeting was cancelled for technical reasons. (official notice)
Academic and technical writing, where suppressing the agent is a stylistic convention, just as in English.
Os dados foram coletados ao longo de seis meses.
The data were collected over six months. (academic)
So the rule of thumb is register-bound: the more formal and written the context, the more at home the ser-passive is.
Common Mistakes
These are systematic over-uses by English speakers, who carry English's passive habit straight into Portuguese.
❌ Meu celular foi roubado no metrô. (in casual conversation)
Grammatical but stiff — sounds like a written report told aloud.
✅ Roubaram meu celular no metrô.
My phone was stolen on the subway.
❌ É dito que ele vai se demitir.
Unnatural calque of 'it is said that…'.
✅ Dizem que ele vai se demitir.
They say he's going to resign.
❌ A festa foi organizada por nós.
Over-formal where active is natural.
✅ A gente organizou a festa.
We organized the party.
❌ Português é falado aqui.
Calque word order; the bare ser-passive sounds translated on a sign.
✅ Aqui se fala português.
Portuguese is spoken here.
❌ A janela foi quebrada pelo vento. (casual)
Fine in writing; bookish in conversation.
✅ O vento quebrou a janela.
The wind broke the window.
Notice the last pair: when the agent is known (the wind), the natural fix is simply to make that agent the subject of an active verb. The passive's job — hiding or de-emphasizing the agent — is rarely what a Brazilian speaker actually wants in conversation.
Key Takeaways
- The ser-passive (foi + participle) is grammatical but reads as formal/written in Brazilian Portuguese.
- In speech, an English agentless passive maps best onto the active 3pl: The window was broken → Quebraram a janela.
- The se-passive (Aqui se fala português) is the more elegant written-but-not-stiff alternative.
- The ser-passive stays alive and correct in headlines, official notices, and academic prose.
- English speakers systematically over-produce the passive — train yourself to default to active and only reach for ser + participle when the register genuinely calls for it.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Ser-Passive (Formal Passive Voice)B1 — How to form the analytic passive with ser plus past participle, why the participle agrees with the subject, and why Brazilians rarely use it in speech.
- 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.
- Se-Passive (Sintética Passive)A2 — The passive with se plus a third-person verb that agrees with the logical object — vende-se, alugam-se — and why Brazilians often skip the agreement.
- 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.
- Passive SentencesB1 — Building passive sentences in Brazilian Portuguese — the ser-passive with 'por', the se-passive for agentless statements, and why everyday speech prefers active recasts.
- Calque Errors (Literal Translation)B1 — Why translating English structures and idioms word-for-word breaks in Brazilian Portuguese — age with 'ter', 'se divertir' vs. 'have a good time', untranslatable idioms, and the chunks you must learn whole.