Double Past Participles (chego/chegado, ganho/ganhado) | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

A surprising number of common Portuguese verbs carry two past participles: a regular one (in -ado / -ido) and a shorter, irregular one. These are the particípios duplos (or particípios abundantes). The textbook rule for choosing between them is clean and easy to state — and in Brazilian Portuguese it is actively crumbling. This page gives you the rule for writing, and the reality for speaking.

The verbs with two participles

Verb	Meaning	Regular (with ter)	Irregular (with ser/estar)
aceitar	to accept	aceitado	aceito
entregar	to deliver, hand in	entregado	entregue
expressar	to express	expressado	expresso
ganhar	to win, earn	ganhado	ganho
gastar	to spend	gastado	gasto
imprimir	to print	imprimido	impresso
matar	to kill	matado	morto
morrer	to die	morrido	morto
pagar	to pay	pagado	pago
pegar	to grab, catch	pegado	pego
prender	to arrest, fasten	prendido	preso
salvar	to save	salvado	salvo

Two of these deserve a flag. Matar (to kill) and morrer (to die) share the irregular participle morto — one form does the work for both verbs (it's quem mata and quem morre). And expresso / impresso are also nouns and adjectives in their own right (um café expresso, uma cópia impressa).

A warning about "chego"

The title of this page deliberately includes chego, because learners often assume chegar (to arrive) has a double participle like ganhar. It does not. Chegar is a fully regular -ar verb, and its only participle is chegado.

✅ Ela tinha chegado cedo.

She had arrived early. (chegado — the only correct participle)

❌ Ela tinha chego cedo.

Incorrect — chego is not a participle; it's the first-person present of chegar (I arrive).

Chego exists only as eu chego = "I arrive." Using it as a participle (tinha chego) is (informal/nonstandard) — you'll occasionally hear it in very casual speech by analogy with pego, but it is not accepted in writing and many Brazilians consider it an error. Keep chegado in any careful context.

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The fact that learners (and some natives) invent chego is itself the lesson of this page: the short irregular forms are so dominant in BR speech that people back-form new ones. Resist the temptation — only the verbs in the table above actually have a second participle.

The prescriptive rule: regular with ter, irregular with ser/estar

The traditional rule lines the two forms up by auxiliary:

Regular form (longer, in -ado / -ido) goes with the auxiliary ter (and haver) in compound tenses.
Irregular form (shorter) goes with ser (passive) and estar (state).

Tinham pagado a conta antes de sair.

They had paid the bill before leaving. (compound → pagado, prescriptively)

A conta foi paga pelo gerente.

The bill was paid by the manager. (passive → paga)

A conta já está paga.

The bill is already paid. (state with estar → paga)

The same split for entregar:

O carteiro tinha entregado as cartas de manhã.

The mail carrier had delivered the letters in the morning. (compound → entregado)

As cartas foram entregues no endereço errado.

The letters were delivered to the wrong address. (passive → entregues)

Note that entregue and salvo and morto and preso — the irregular forms — agree in gender and number when they sit in passive or adjectival position: entregue / entregues, preso / presa / presos / presas, morto / morta / mortos / mortas. The regular forms agree too, but in practice you mostly meet them after ter, where nothing agrees.

The Brazilian reality: the irregular forms are winning

Here is where the textbook and the street diverge. In modern Brazilian Portuguese, the short irregular forms (pago, gasto, ganho, pego) are spreading into the compound tenses — the very place the rule reserves for the regular forms. Constructions like tinha pago, tinha gasto, tinha ganho, and especially tinha pego are completely ordinary in speech.

Quando cheguei, ele já tinha pago a entrada pra todo mundo.

When I arrived, he had already paid the cover charge for everyone. (BR colloquial — pago after ter)

Eu tinha pego o ônibus errado e acabei do outro lado da cidade.

I had taken the wrong bus and ended up on the other side of the city. (BR colloquial — pego after ter, very widespread)

A gente tinha gasto muito mais do que esperava.

We had spent much more than we expected. (BR colloquial — gasto after ter)

In fact, for ganhar, gastar, and pagar, the long forms ganhado, gastado, and pagado now sound stilted to most Brazilian ears in everyday use — many speakers would never produce them spontaneously. Pego after ter is so common that pegado sounds almost wrong in casual conversation, even though it's the prescriptively "correct" compound form.

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Practical rule of thumb for BR Portuguese: in speech, use the short irregular form everywhere (tinha pago, foi pago, está pago). In formal writing — a thesis, a contract, an exam — fall back on the prescriptive split (tinha pagado after ter, foi pago in the passive) to be safe. You'll never be marked wrong for the conservative choice.

Why this is happening (the "why")

The drift has a clear motive: economy and analogy. The short forms are shorter, and once a speaker uses foi pago in the passive, the brain wants to reuse that same handy word in tinha pago rather than dredge up a separate, longer pagado. Over time the irregular form becomes the verb's single all-purpose participle and the regular one fades. This is the same process that, centuries ago, eliminated the regular participles of fazer and dizer entirely — feito and dito are the survivors of old double pairs. Today's ganho / ganhado split is just that history repeating in slow motion, and ganho is winning the same way feito once did.

Esse hábito ele tinha ganhado do pai.

He had picked up that habit from his father. (conservative written form — ganhado after ter)

Esse hábito ele tinha ganho do pai.

He had picked up that habit from his father. (everyday BR — ganho after ter)

A few verbs that resist

Not every double pair is collapsing equally. Matar and morrer keep a strong split: you say tinha matado / tinha morrido (compound) but foi morto / está morto (passive/state). Saying tinha morto for "had died" sounds odd. Likewise prender keeps tinha prendido in the compound but foi preso / está preso in the passive. So don't over-generalize the pego-style collapse to every verb on the list.

A polícia tinha prendido três suspeitos.

The police had arrested three suspects. (compound → prendido)

Os três suspeitos foram presos na mesma noite.

The three suspects were arrested the same night. (passive → presos)

Common Mistakes

❌ Ela tinha chego no horário.

Incorrect — chegar has no double participle; chego is a present-tense form, not a participle.

✅ Ela tinha chegado no horário.

She had arrived on time.

❌ A conta foi pagado ontem.

Incorrect — in the passive use the irregular form: paga.

✅ A conta foi paga ontem.

The bill was paid yesterday.

❌ As encomendas foram entregado hoje.

Incorrect — passive needs the agreeing irregular form: entregues.

✅ As encomendas foram entregues hoje.

The packages were delivered today.

❌ O suspeito tinha morto pela polícia.

Incorrect — for the passive 'was killed' use ser, not ter; and morto is the right form there: foi morto.

✅ O suspeito foi morto pela polícia.

The suspect was killed by the police.

❌ Ele tinha preso o cachorro na coleira.

Incorrect — with ter use the regular form: prendido.

✅ Ele tinha prendido o cachorro na coleira.

He had fastened the dog to the leash.

Key Takeaways

Many verbs keep two participles: regular (with ter) and irregular (with ser/estar).
Chegar is not one of them — its only participle is chegado; chego is a present-tense verb.
The prescriptive split (regular after ter, irregular after ser/estar) holds in formal writing.
In everyday BR speech, the short irregular forms (pago, gasto, ganho, pego) are taking over the compound slot too.
Some verbs resist the drift — matar/morrer → morto, prender → preso keep their split.

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