Trazer (to bring) is one of the most useful verbs in everyday Brazilian Portuguese, and it hides two things English speakers need to get right: an irregular eu form, and a meaning that depends entirely on where the speaker is standing. Get the conjugation and the directional logic, and you will stop making the single most common verb-choice error in beginner Portuguese — confusing trazer with levar.
The conjugation
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| eu | trago |
| você / ele / ela | traz |
| nós | trazemos |
| vocês / eles / elas | trazem |
(The tu form trazes is regional; no vós in Brazil.)
The only real surprise is the eu form. The stem of trazer is traz- (with a z), so you might expect trazo — but the eu form swaps the z for a g: trago. Everywhere else the z stays put: traz, trazemos, trazem.
Eu trago o vinho, você traz a sobremesa.
I'll bring the wine, you bring the dessert.
Ela traz o filho para o trabalho às vezes.
She brings her son to work sometimes.
A gente traz as cadeiras lá de casa.
We'll bring the chairs from our place.
Why "trago" and not "trazo"
The -g- in trago is not arbitrary — it belongs to a small, learnable club. A handful of irregular verbs replace their stem consonant with -g- specifically in the eu form:
| Verb | Meaning | eu form | Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| fazer | to do, to make | faço | z → ç |
| dizer | to say | digo | z → g |
| trazer | to bring | trago | z → g |
So trago sits right next to digo (dizer) — same swap of z → g, same eu-only behavior. If you have already met fazer and dizer, trago costs you almost nothing. This is the recurring truth of Brazilian present-tense irregularity: it concentrates in the eu form, and it falls into a few repeating shapes rather than pure chaos.
The big one: trazer vs. levar
This is where English speakers slip. English "bring" and "take" map onto Portuguese trazer and levar, but the dividing line is deictic — it depends on the speaker's location at the moment of speaking.
- trazer = movement toward the speaker (or toward where the speaker is / will be). "Bring it here."
- levar = movement away from the speaker, toward somewhere else. "Take it there."
The verb is anchored to you, the speaker, right now. If the thing is coming to where you are, it's trazer. If it's going off to somewhere you aren't, it's levar.
Pode me trazer um copo d'água?
Can you bring me a glass of water? (toward me — trazer)
Leva isso para a cozinha, por favor.
Take this to the kitchen, please. (away from me — levar)
Quando você vier, traz o carregador que eu te emprestei.
When you come, bring the charger I lent you. (to where I am — trazer)
Eu levo as crianças para a escola toda manhã.
I take the kids to school every morning. (away, to the school — levar)
The trap is that English "bring" is looser than trazer. We say "Can you bring this to the office?" even when the office is away from us — but Portuguese would use levar there, because the motion is away from the speaker. Don't translate "bring" reflexively as trazer; ask first, is it coming toward me?
For the full breakdown including buscar (to go get / pick up), see levar vs. trazer vs. buscar.
Metaphorical trazer
Beyond physical objects, trazer is used widely for things that "come with" or "arrive bringing" something — seasons, news, consequences. Here the deictic logic relaxes; trazer simply means "to bring about / to come carrying."
O verão traz calor e praia lotada.
Summer brings heat and crowded beaches.
Essa decisão traz consequências sérias.
This decision brings serious consequences.
O jornal de hoje traz uma reportagem sobre isso.
Today's paper has (literally: brings) a report about that.
Comparison with English
English collapses a lot into "bring": "bring up" (a topic), "bring back" (return), "bring about" (cause). Portuguese trazer covers the core "bring toward" sense and the metaphorical "bring about," but not the others — "bring back" is trazer de volta or devolver, and "bring up a topic" is usually trazer à tona or mencionar. Treat trazer as the literal-and-causal "bring," not as a catch-all for every English phrasal "bring."
And remember: English has no built-in speaker-anchored split between "bring" and "take" — both verbs technically encode direction, but English speakers use them loosely. Portuguese enforces the distinction much more strictly, which is exactly why this is a frequent error.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu trazo o vinho hoje à noite.
Incorrect — the eu form swaps z for g: trago.
✅ Eu trago o vinho hoje à noite.
I'll bring the wine tonight.
❌ Você pode me levar um café? (asking someone to bring one to you)
Incorrect — toward the speaker calls for trazer, not levar.
✅ Você pode me trazer um café?
Can you bring me a coffee?
❌ Eu trago as crianças para a escola. (the school is away from you)
Incorrect — away from the speaker calls for levar.
✅ Eu levo as crianças para a escola.
I take the kids to school.
❌ Ela traze o filho para o trabalho.
Incorrect — the ele/ela form is traz (no -e ending).
✅ Ela traz o filho para o trabalho.
She brings her son to work.
❌ A gente trazemos as cadeiras.
Incorrect — 'a gente' takes the singular: traz.
✅ A gente traz as cadeiras.
We'll bring the chairs.
Key Takeaways
- Forms: trago, traz, trazemos, trazem. Only the eu form is irregular (z → g).
- Group trago with faço and digo — three -zer verbs that change their stem consonant in the eu form.
- trazer = toward the speaker; levar = away from the speaker. The verb tracks your location, not the subject's.
- Don't translate English "bring" automatically — if the motion is away from you, it's levar.
- Metaphorical trazer ("o verão traz calor") means "to bring about / come carrying."
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Levar vs Trazer vs Buscar: Carrying VerbsA2 — How deixis decides between levar (take away), trazer (bring here), and buscar/pegar (go fetch, grab) in Brazilian Portuguese.
- Present Indicative of Fazer and DizerA2 — How to conjugate the parallel -zer verbs fazer (do/make) and dizer (say) in the Brazilian Portuguese present, plus fazer's enormous range of meanings.
- Summary of Irregular Present Indicative FormsA2 — A consolidated reference table of the most common irregular Brazilian Portuguese verbs in the present indicative, grouped by the type of irregularity — suppletive stems, -g-/-ç- eu forms, -z- stems, and vowel-changing -ir verbs.
- Present Indicative: Regular -er VerbsA1 — How to conjugate regular -er verbs in the Brazilian Portuguese present indicative — and why so many common -er verbs are irregular.