Pretérito Perfeito: Regular -ar Verbs | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

The -ar class is by far the largest group of verbs in Portuguese, so learning its preterite pattern unlocks thousands of verbs at once. The endings are stable and predictable, with one small spelling wrinkle in the eu form of a few verbs — which we will cover in full.

The endings

To form the pretérito perfeito of a regular -ar verb, drop the -ar and add these endings:

Person	Ending	falar →
eu	-ei	falei
tu (regional)	-aste	falaste
você / ele / ela	-ou	falou
nós	-amos	falamos
vocês / eles / elas	-aram	falaram

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Most of Brazil uses você for "you," so the tu form (falaste) is something you mainly need to recognize, not produce. It is common in the South and parts of the Northeast (regional), but in those areas the verb is often "wrong" by the book anyway — many speakers say tu falou instead of tu falaste. Focus your energy on você.

The two signature forms

Two endings give this tense its unmistakable sound:

-ei for eu. This is the marker English speakers should burn into memory: falei, trabalhei, comprei. It is short, stressed on the final -ei, and it never changes.
-ou for você/ele/ela. Highly visible and frequent in speech: falou, comprou, chegou. When you hear a verb ending in a stressed -ou, you are almost always hearing a third-person preterite.

Eu falei com o médico hoje de manhã.

I talked to the doctor this morning.

Ela comprou um carro novo.

She bought a new car.

Você trabalhou no sábado?

Did you work on Saturday?

The nós overlap

The nós form falamos is identical to the present tense. Nós falamos is both "we speak" and "we spoke." There is no accent or spelling difference to separate them — context resolves it, as discussed in the preterite overview.

Ontem nós trabalhamos até tarde.

Yesterday we worked late. (past — the time word 'ontem' signals it)

A full table of common -ar verbs

Every verb below follows the falar pattern exactly. Learn one, get them all.

Infinitive	eu	você/ele/ela	nós	vocês/eles/elas
falar (to speak)	falei	falou	falamos	falaram
trabalhar (to work)	trabalhei	trabalhou	trabalhamos	trabalharam
comprar (to buy)	comprei	comprou	compramos	compraram
gostar (to like)	gostei	gostou	gostamos	gostaram

Eu gostei muito do filme.

I really liked the movie.

Eles compraram a casa em 2019.

They bought the house in 2019.

Spelling-change verbs: c, g, and ç before the -ei

Here is the one wrinkle. A small set of -ar verbs change their spelling in the eu form only — and they do it for a reason that is entirely about pronunciation, not grammar.

In Portuguese, the letters c and g are "soft" before e and i (so ce sounds like /se/ and ge like /zhe/) but "hard" before a, o, u. When a verb's stem ends in a hard c, g, or ç sound, adding the eu ending -ei would put an e right after it — which would change how it sounds. To preserve the original pronunciation, the spelling adjusts:

Infinitive	Stem ends in	eu form	Why
ficar (to stay)	hard c /k/	fiquei	c → qu keeps the /k/ sound before -ei
chegar (to arrive)	hard g /g/	cheguei	g → gu keeps the /g/ sound before -ei
pagar (to pay)	hard g /g/	paguei	g → gu keeps the /g/ sound before -ei
começar (to begin)	ç /s/	comecei	ç → c keeps the /s/ sound before -ei
almoçar (to have lunch)	ç /s/	almocei	ç → c keeps the /s/ sound before -ei

The crucial point: this change happens in the eu form only. Every other person keeps the original spelling because the ending starts with a or o, which already preserves the hard sound: ficou, ficamos, ficaram; chegou, chegamos, chegaram; começou, começamos, começaram.

Eu fiquei em casa o fim de semana inteiro.

I stayed home the whole weekend.

Eu cheguei atrasado de novo.

I arrived late again.

Eu comecei a aprender português este ano.

I started learning Portuguese this year.

Eu já paguei a conta.

I already paid the bill.

Eu almocei com a minha mãe ontem.

I had lunch with my mom yesterday.

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Think of it as the spelling working for you, not against you. The whole point of writing fiquei instead of ficei is so the verb keeps sounding like ficar. If you say it out loud, the spelling explains itself.

For the full set of these spelling-change verbs and the rules behind them, see spelling changes in the -ar preterite.

A reassuring contrast with English

English past tenses are full of unpredictable surprises in exactly this person: I go → I went, I buy → I bought, I bring → I brought. Portuguese regular -ar verbs have none of that. The eu form is uniformly -ei, and the only adjustment — fiquei, cheguei — is a tidy spelling rule that doesn't even change the sound. Once you trust -ei, you can produce the eu preterite of any regular -ar verb on the spot.

Common Mistakes

❌ Eu ficei em casa.

Incorrect — 'ficar' needs the c→qu change before -ei to keep the /k/ sound.

✅ Eu fiquei em casa.

I stayed home.

❌ Eu chegei tarde.

Incorrect — 'chegar' needs g→gu before -ei to keep the hard /g/.

✅ Eu cheguei tarde.

I arrived late.

❌ Eu começei a estudar.

Incorrect — the ç becomes c before -ei (the ç only exists before a, o, u).

✅ Eu comecei a estudar.

I started studying.

❌ Eu falo com ela ontem.

Incorrect — 'falo' is present tense; a finished past action needs 'falei.'

✅ Eu falei com ela ontem.

I talked to her yesterday.

❌ Ela falei com o chefe.

Incorrect — '-ei' is the eu ending; she takes '-ou.'

✅ Ela falou com o chefe.

She talked to the boss.

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