Ter ("to have") and haver ("to exist / there to be") are two of the most important verbs in Portuguese, and their simple-past forms are both irregular. Ter gives you tive / teve / tiveram for past possession, and it is also the verb that builds compound tenses. Haver gives you houve, the formal way to say "there was" or "it happened." The two are deeply intertwined in the grammar — and in Brazil, spoken usage quietly swaps one for the other in a way that learners need to know about.
Conjugating ter
Like estar, ter uses a suppletive stem in the preterite — tiv- — that looks nothing like the infinitive. (Compare estiv- from estar: the same family of strong preterites.)
| Subject | Pretérito perfeito |
|---|---|
| eu | tive |
| tu (regional) | tiveste |
| você / ele / ela | teve |
| nós | tivemos |
| vocês / eles / elas | tiveram |
Ter for past possession
Eu tive um carro vermelho quando era mais novo.
I had a red car when I was younger.
A gente teve uma reunião super longa hoje.
We had a really long meeting today.
Vocês tiveram aula ontem?
Did you all have class yesterday?
The pretérito perfeito of ter marks a possession or experience that is bounded and finished — you had the car, but you no longer do. For an ongoing past possession that sets the scene ("I used to have"), Portuguese uses the imperfect tinha instead: Eu tinha um carro vermelho describes a backdrop, while Eu tive um carro vermelho reports a completed fact.
Ter as the compound-tense auxiliary
This is the other huge job of ter. Portuguese builds its compound (perfect) tenses with ter + past participle, exactly where English uses have. In the past, the auxiliary takes the imperfect (tinha), giving the pluperfect:
Quando cheguei, ela já tinha falado com o gerente.
When I arrived, she had already spoken with the manager.
Eu nunca tinha comido açaí antes de vir pro Brasil.
I had never eaten açaí before coming to Brazil.
So ter is doing double duty: a full lexical verb ("to have/possess") and a grammatical auxiliary. See compound tenses overview for the full system.
Conjugating haver
Haver is highly irregular and, in its existential meaning, almost always used in the third-person singular only — even when the thing that exists is plural. Its preterite is houve.
| Subject | Pretérito perfeito |
|---|---|
| eu | houve |
| tu (rare) | houveste |
| você / ele / ela | houve |
| nós | houvemos |
| vocês / eles / elas | houveram |
In practice you will overwhelmingly meet just one form: houve, used impersonally to mean "there was / there were / it happened." Because it is impersonal, it stays singular regardless of the noun:
Houve um acidente na rodovia esta manhã.
There was an accident on the highway this morning.
Houve muitas reclamações sobre o novo sistema.
There were many complaints about the new system.
Look at the second example: the subject reclamações is plural, but houve stays singular. This is the cardinal rule of existential haver — it does not agree with the thing that exists, because grammatically there is no subject. English speakers find this counterintuitive because English "there were" agrees with "complaints."
The crucial Brazilian reality: houve vs. teve
Here is the insight that textbooks often hide. In Brazil, houve is heavily literary and journalistic. You will read it constantly in newspapers, formal reports, and edited prose. But in everyday speech, Brazilians almost never say houve. Instead they use teve (the preterite of ter) or aconteceu ("happened") for the same "there was / it happened" meaning.
Teve um acidente na rodovia hoje de manhã.
There was an accident on the highway this morning. (everyday spoken)
Ontem teve uma festa lá na casa do Léo.
There was a party at Léo's place yesterday. (informal)
| Register | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| (literary / journalistic / academic) | houve | Houve um incêndio. |
| (informal, everyday spoken) | teve | Teve um incêndio. |
| (neutral, all registers) | aconteceu | Aconteceu um incêndio. |
So if you say houve at a casual barbecue, you will be understood perfectly — but you may sound like you are reading the news aloud. And if you write teve um acidente in a formal report, an editor will likely change it to houve. Match the register to the situation.
Common Mistakes
❌ Houveram muitos problemas na viagem.
Incorrect — existential haver stays singular; it does not agree with 'problemas'.
✅ Houve muitos problemas na viagem.
There were many problems on the trip.
English "there were" agrees with the plural, so learners reach for houveram. Existential haver never agrees — keep it houve.
❌ Eu teve uma ideia.
Incorrect — teve is the você/ele/ela form, not the eu form.
✅ Eu tive uma ideia.
I had an idea.
The eu form is tive; teve belongs to você/ele/ela. Don't let English (where "I had" and "he had" share one word) flatten the two forms.
❌ Nós temos um problema ontem.
Incorrect — present tense (temos) used for a past event.
✅ Nós tivemos um problema ontem.
We had a problem yesterday.
Ontem ("yesterday") demands the past; the nós preterite is tivemos.
❌ Teve uma reunião muito importante. (in a formal report)
Stylistically off — teve is informal here; formal writing wants houve.
✅ Houve uma reunião muito importante.
There was a very important meeting. (formal register)
Not a grammar error, but a register mismatch. In edited prose, the existential is houve.
Key Takeaways
- Ter → preterite stem tiv-: tive, (tiveste), teve, tivemos, tiveram — for past possession and (as tinha) for compound tenses.
- Haver → preterite houve, used impersonally for "there was / it happened," and always singular.
- In Brazil, houve is literary/journalistic; spoken Portuguese prefers teve or aconteceu.
- Don't confuse the eu form tive with the third-person teve — English hides the distinction, but Portuguese keeps it.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Pretérito Perfeito of EstarA1 — How to conjugate estar in the simple past (estive, esteve, estiveram), and why it — not foi — is usually the right choice for past locations and temporary states.
- Ter and Haver: OverviewA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese splits possession, existence, and compound-tense duties between ter and haver — and why ter wins almost everywhere.
- Houve for Past Events ('There Was')B1 — How 'houve' expresses past existence and events — and why most Brazilians say 'teve' or 'aconteceu' instead in everyday speech.
- Compound Tenses OverviewB1 — A map of the Brazilian Portuguese compound tenses, all built with ter + past participle, and why haver as an auxiliary is essentially literary.
- TerA1 — How to conjugate and use ter (to have) in Brazilian Portuguese — the highly irregular verb for possession, the everyday existential 'there is/are', age, physical states, and the universal compound auxiliary.
- HaverA2 — Usage reference for 'haver' — a highly irregular and, in modern Brazilian Portuguese, mostly defective verb that survives in a handful of frozen forms: há, havia, houve, houver, haja.