Pretérito Perfeito of Estar | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

The pretérito perfeito of estar is how you say where you were at a particular moment, or what temporary state you were in, in the past. It is one of the most useful irregular verbs in the language — and one English speakers reach for far less often than they should, because English collapses estar and ser into a single verb, to be. When the meaning is "I was somewhere" or "I was in some temporary state," the answer is almost always a form of estive, not fui.

Conjugation

Every form is built on the irregular stem estiv-. There is no way to predict this stem from the infinitive estar — you simply memorize it. The good news is that the same stem appears in the imperfect subjunctive (estivesse) and the future subjunctive (estiver), so learning it pays off across several tenses.

Subject	Pretérito perfeito
eu	estive
tu (regional)	estiveste
você / ele / ela	esteve
nós	estivemos
vocês / eles / elas	estiveram

Notice the irregular endings: -e in the eu form (estive, not the regular -i) and -eve in the third-person singular (esteve). These mirror the endings of the other "strong preterite" verbs — tive, fiz, quis, pude — which all share this family resemblance. Learn one and the others feel familiar.

💡

The tu form estiveste is regional in Brazil — common in parts of the South and Northeast, but in most of the country tu takes the você/third-person verb anyway (tu esteve). For learning standard Brazilian Portuguese, focus on estive, esteve, estivemos, estiveram.

Using it for past location

The most common use is to say where someone was at a specific point in the past — a finished visit, a completed stay.

Eu estive em São Paulo no ano passado.

I was in São Paulo last year.

A gente esteve na praia o fim de semana inteiro.

We were at the beach the whole weekend.

Vocês estiveram na reunião de ontem?

Were you all at yesterday's meeting?

Note that a gente ("we," literally "the people") takes the third-person singular esteve, even though it means "we." This is the everyday Brazilian way of saying "we," far more common in speech than nós.

Using it for a temporary state

The second big use is for a temporary condition that held for a stretch of past time and is now over: being sick, being busy, being worried.

Ela esteve doente a semana toda, mas já melhorou.

She was sick all week, but she's better now.

Estivemos preocupados com você.

We were worried about you.

Eu estive muito ocupado esses dias, desculpa não ter respondido.

I've been really busy these past few days, sorry for not replying.

In each case the state is bounded — it had a beginning and an end inside the past. That boundedness is exactly what the pretérito perfeito signals.

Estive vs. fui: the choice English hides

This is the heart of the page. English has one verb, to be, so "I was in Rio" and "I was a teacher" use the same word. Portuguese splits to be into ser and estar, and that split carries into the past:

fui (from ser) — past identity, origin, or a defining trait: who or what something was.
estive (from estar) — past location, or a temporary state at a moment: where something was, or how it was doing.

Meaning	Verb	Example
"I was in Rio" (location)	estive	Estive no Rio.
"I was a teacher" (identity)	fui	Fui professor.
"He was sick" (temporary state)	esteve	Ele esteve doente.
"He was the team captain" (a role he held)	foi	Ele foi o capitão do time.

Estive no aeroporto às seis, mas o voo já tinha saído.

I was at the airport at six, but the flight had already left.

O João foi um ótimo professor durante trinta anos.

João was a great teacher for thirty years.

The first sentence places the speaker at a location at a moment → estive. The second defines what João was over his career → foi. If you can ask "where were you?" or "what state were you in?", reach for estive. If you can ask "what/who were you?", reach for fui.

💡

Quick test: if you could swap in "was located at" or "was feeling," it is estive. If you could swap in "was identified as," it is fui. English gives you no hint, so you have to run this check yourself until it becomes automatic.

A subtle nuance: estive vs. estava

Brazilian Portuguese also has the imperfect estava ("was/was being," ongoing). The difference is the same as everywhere in the past system: estive is a bounded, completed stretch ("I was there and then I left"), while estava is the ongoing backdrop ("I was there when something happened").

Eu estava no banho quando o telefone tocou.

I was in the shower when the phone rang.

Eu estive no banco hoje de manhã.

I was at the bank this morning.

The first sets a scene that something interrupts → estava. The second reports a completed errand → estive. For more on this contrast, see the preterite vs. imperfect overview.

Common Mistakes

English speakers make predictable errors here, almost all of them rooted in the single English verb to be.

❌ Eu fui em São Paulo no ano passado.

Incorrect — fui (ser) is wrong for location; this also reads as 'I went to São Paulo' with the wrong preposition.

✅ Eu estive em São Paulo no ano passado.

I was in São Paulo last year.

This is the classic trap. "I was in São Paulo" tempts you toward fui because English uses to be — but the meaning is location, so it must be estive. (As a bonus confusion, fui em São Paulo sounds like "I went to São Paulo," which would properly be fui a/para São Paulo.)

❌ Ela foi doente a semana toda.

Incorrect — foi (ser) wrongly describes sickness as a defining identity.

✅ Ela esteve doente a semana toda.

She was sick all week.

Being sick is a temporary state, not who someone is, so it takes esteve.

❌ Nós estivnos preocupados.

Incorrect — invented ending; the nós form is estivemos.

✅ Nós estivemos preocupados.

We were worried.

The nós ending on the estiv- stem is the regular -emos: estiv- + -emos = estivemos.

❌ Vocês esteveram na festa?

Incorrect — the third-person plural is estiveram, not 'esteveram'.

✅ Vocês estiveram na festa?

Were you all at the party?

The plural keeps the full stem estiv- plus -eram: estiveram. Don't shorten it to match the singular esteve.

Key Takeaways

The whole tense is built on the irregular stem estiv-: estive, (estiveste), esteve, estivemos, estiveram.
Use it for past location ("where I was") and temporary past states ("how I was doing").
When English "was" means located at or feeling, choose estive, not fui.
The same estiv- stem reappears in the imperfect subjunctive (estivesse) and future subjunctive (estiver) — learning it once pays off three times.

Now practice Portuguese

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Portuguese→