Change-of-State 'Se' Verbs (levantar-se, sentar-se)

A whole family of everyday verbs describes a change of state or position: getting up, sitting down, lying down, waking up, calming down, falling in love. In careful Portuguese these traditionally carry a reflexive se — levantar-se, sentar-se, deitar-se. But this is precisely the corner of the grammar where Brazilian speech most cheerfully throws the se away. Understanding when the pronoun is required, optional, or pointless is one of the most practical things you can learn about real spoken Brazilian.

The verbs and their textbook forms

Each of these verbs describes the subject moving itself into a new state. That self-directed quality is why the reflexive se attached historically.

The cleanest BR vs PT-PT contrast in the language

Here is the heart of the page. European Portuguese (PT-PT) keeps the se faithfully — in writing and in everyday speech. A Lisbon speaker says eu levanto-me às sete and would never drop the me. Brazilian Portuguese, by contrast, drops the reflexive pronoun whenever the meaning stays clear. Eu levanto às sete — with no me at all — is completely natural and standard in Brazil.

Why Brazilian can drop it without losing meaning

The pronoun survives in PT-PT partly out of grammatical conservatism, but Brazilian speakers can shed it because context already tells you the action is self-directed. If I say levanto às sete, there is no one else around to be lifted — obviously I am getting myself up. The se was redundant, so colloquial Brazilian quietly retired it. This is the same pressure that pushed lembrar-se toward plain lembrar; change-of-state verbs simply went further down the same road, because their meaning is even harder to misread.

The se does stay when ambiguity is real. Levantar without se can also mean "to lift (something)" — Ele levantou a caixa (He lifted the box). With a person as the thing lifted, you would keep the reflexive to mean "got up": Ele se levantou vs Ele levantou o filho do chão (He picked his child up off the floor).

Acordar: where even the se-form is unusual

Acordar (to wake up) is a special case. Although acordar-se exists, plain acordar is overwhelmingly more common in Brazil, with or without formality. You wake up; you don't "wake yourself." Reserve any reflexive only for the rare transitive use "to wake someone."

In the second sentence the me is a real object (wake me), not the change-of-state reflexive. Same trap as lembrar vs lembrar-se: pronouns recycle one verb into two related jobs.

Apaixonar-se: the se survives here

Not every verb in this family sheds its pronoun. Apaixonar-se por (to fall in love with) keeps its se even in casual speech, because apaixonar on its own (to make someone fall in love, to enrapture) is a distinct transitive meaning. Dropping the pronoun would change the sense.

So within one family, the verbs sort themselves: levantar, sentar, deitar, acordar shed the pronoun freely in Brazil; apaixonar-se and acalmar-se tend to keep it because the bare verb means something else.

Common mistakes

This is not grammatically wrong, but enclisis (sento-me) plus the retained se signals European or very formal Portuguese. In Brazil it sounds stilted in conversation.

Don't attach the change-of-state se when the verb actually has an object. Me levanto means "I get up," so adding a caixa collides.

Unlike levantar and sentar, apaixonar-se does not drop its pronoun. The bare verb means "to make [someone] fall in love."

In Brazilian imperatives the pronoun goes before the verb (proclisis: se acalma), not after it (acalma-te). Even simpler, Brazilians often just say Calma! with no verb at all.