Summary of Irregular Present Indicative Forms

This is your one-stop reference for the irregular present indicative. Rather than memorize each verb as an isolated exception, the smart move is to see that Brazilian Portuguese irregularity falls into a few repeating types — and that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, only the eu form actually breaks the pattern. Skim this page to get the shape, then bookmark it as a lookup table.

Throughout, the columns are eu / você–ele–ela / nós / vocês–eles–elas. The regional tu forms are omitted, as they're not part of standard Brazilian speech.

Type 1: Suppletive verbs (whole new stems)

A few verbs are irregular in every form because they fused together from more than one Latin verb. There is no pattern to extract — you simply memorize them. The good news: they are so frequent you'll internalize them within weeks.

Two accent notes you must get right. Ter and vir show a contrast between singular tem/vem (no accent) and plural têm/vêm (circumflex). That circumflex marks the plural and is kept in modern Brazilian spelling — unlike the veem/leem plurals, which lost theirs. And haver as "there is/are" is almost always the impersonal há, which never changes for number: há um problema, há vários problemas.

Type 2: The -g- / -ç- eu form

This is the workhorse pattern. The eu form grows a -g- or a -ç- that no other person has. The remaining three forms are regular for the verb's class. If you train yourself to expect this, a huge swath of "irregular" verbs become predictable.

Notice the sub-shapes: faço/peço/meço/perco end the eu form in -ço/-co (a /s/ or /k/ sound), while digo/trago/valho/ouço vary. Don't over-systematize — just register that the eu form sprouts a consonant, and the rest is regular.

Type 3: -z- stem verbs

These are really a subset of Type 2 (their eu forms appear above), but it's worth seeing them together, because their non-eu forms share the bare -z- ending in the singular: faz, diz, traz. That clipped third-person form — no vowel ending — is what trips learners who expect faze or traze.

Type 4: Vowel-changing -ir verbs

A group of -ir verbs keep their endings regular but change the stem vowel in the eu form only, raising e → i or o → u. This is the trickiest type because it's silent in the infinitive — you can't tell from preferir that the eu form is prefiro. See the dedicated page on stem-changing -ir verbs for the full logic.

Note that sair and cair add a -i- in the eu form (saio, caio), and their nós forms carry an accent (saímos, caímos) to mark the hiatus — the í is pronounced as a separate stressed vowel.

Type 5: The standalone oddballs

Some common verbs don't fit neatly into the families above. Learn them individually — but notice that, true to form, the irregularity is again mostly in the eu form.

The last four — ver, ler, crer and pôr — each get their own detailed treatment. Watch the accents: vê/lê/crê (singular, with hat) vs. veem/leem/creem (plural, no hat); and põe/põem with a tilde.

How to use this page

Don't try to memorize all of this in one sitting. Instead:

1. Lock down Type 1 (ser, estar, ter, ir, vir) — these are unavoidable and frequent.
2. Internalize the Type 2 reflex: when in doubt, the eu form probably grows a consonant. This handles most of the rest.
3. Treat Types 4 and 5 as a lookup table — glance back here when you hit one in the wild.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Irregularity clusters in the eu form. Learn the eu column and the rest usually follows the regular pattern.
• Type 1 (ser, estar, ir, ter, vir, dar, haver) is suppletive — pure memorization, but high-frequency.
• Type 2 (faço, digo, trago, valho, ouço, peço, meço, perco) grows a consonant in the eu form.
• Type 4 (-ir verbs) raises the stem vowel e→i / o→u in the eu form (prefiro, durmo).
• Mind the accents: têm/vêm (plural circumflex, kept) vs. veem/leem/creem (plural, dropped); vê/lê/crê (singular, kept); põe/põem (tilde).