Presente do Subjuntivo: Regular -ar Verbs | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

The present subjunctive is the first subjunctive tense you learn, and for regular -ar verbs the formation is wonderfully predictable once you know the trick: start from the eu form of the present indicative, drop the -o, and add -e endings. Because -ar verbs swap to -e endings while -er and -ir verbs swap to -a endings, the system has a satisfying symmetry — the subjunctive is the "opposite vowel" of the indicative.

The formation rule

The method that never fails: take the first-person singular present indicative (eu falo), strip the final -o to expose the true stem, and attach the subjunctive endings.

The -ar subjunctive endings are: -e, -es, -e, -emos, -em.

Subject	falar → fal-
que eu	fale
que você / ele / ela	fale
que nós	falemos
que vocês / eles / elas	falem

The tu form is fales, used in regions where tu is grammatically conjugated (parts of the South and Northeast — see the regional pages). With você as the default Brazilian "you," the four forms above cover most of what you need.

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Why start from eu falo and not the infinitive? Because the eu form already carries any irregularities in the stem. Eu faço (fazer) → que eu faça; eu digo (dizer) → que eu diga. For regular -ar verbs the stem is plain, but building the habit now means irregular verbs come almost for free later.

É importante que você fale com sinceridade.

It's important that you speak sincerely.

Quero que a gente fale a mesma língua, no sentido figurado.

I want us to speak the same language, figuratively.

Espero que eles falem comigo antes de decidir.

I hope they talk to me before deciding.

The eu and ele forms are identical

A feature that trips up Spanish speakers (where the forms also coincide) and reassures everyone else: in the present subjunctive, the eu form and the ele/ela/você form are always identical. Que eu fale and que ele fale look exactly the same. Context — the subject pronoun or the surrounding clause — tells you who's meant.

Talvez eu fale com ela amanhã.

Maybe I'll talk to her tomorrow.

Talvez ele fale com ela amanhã.

Maybe he'll talk to her tomorrow.

Because of this overlap, Brazilians frequently keep the subject pronoun in subjunctive clauses where they might drop it in the indicative — the pronoun does the disambiguating work that the verb ending can't.

Spelling changes: keeping the sound

Here is the only real complication for -ar verbs, and it's purely about spelling, not pronunciation. When the stem ends in c, g, or ç, adding an -e ending would change how the consonant sounds. Portuguese fixes this by adjusting the spelling so the sound stays constant.

Verb	Change	Subjunctive (eu)	Why
ficar (to stay)	c → qu	que eu fique	keeps the hard /k/ sound
chegar (to arrive)	g → gu	que eu chegue	keeps the hard /g/ sound
começar (to begin)	ç → c	que eu comece	ç isn't used before e/i

The logic: in Portuguese, c and g are "hard" (as in casa, gato) before a, o, u, but "soft" (as in cebola, gente) before e, i. So ficar would become fice (sounding like "fee-seh") if left alone — wrong. Writing fique preserves the /k/. Likewise chegar would soften to chege; chegue keeps the hard /g/. And ç is simply never written before e or i, so começar drops the cedilla to comece.

Quero que você fique mais um pouco.

I want you to stay a little longer.

Espero que ele chegue a tempo.

I hope he arrives on time.

É melhor que a gente comece agora.

It's better that we start now.

Embora chegue cansado, ele sempre sorri.

Even though he arrives tired, he always smiles.

The shortcut: you already know these spellings

Here's the payoff. These exact spelling changes appear in the first-person preterite of the same verbs: eu fiquei, eu cheguei, eu comecei. The consonant swap you learned for the past tense is identical to the one in the subjunctive. If eu fiquei feels natural, then que eu fique should too — it's the same qu, the same gu, the same c.

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One change, two tenses. fiquei → fique, cheguei → chegue, comecei → comece. Learn the consonant swap once and it covers both the preterite eu form and the entire present subjunctive.

More common -ar verbs

These all follow the plain pattern (no spelling change), built off the regular stem:

Infinitive	que eu / ele	que nós	que eles
trabalhar	trabalhe	trabalhemos	trabalhem
estudar	estude	estudemos	estudem
morar	more	moremos	morem
gostar	goste	gostemos	gostem
ajudar	ajude	ajudemos	ajudem

Tomara que vocês estudem bastante pra prova.

I really hope you all study a lot for the exam.

Peço que você me ajude com uma coisa.

I'm asking you to help me with something.

Common Mistakes

❌ Quero que você fica em casa.

Incorrect — querer que triggers the subjunctive, and ficar needs the c→qu change: fique.

✅ Quero que você fique em casa.

I want you to stay home.

❌ Espero que ele chege cedo.

Incorrect — chegar keeps the hard /g/ with gu: chegue, not chege.

✅ Espero que ele chegue cedo.

I hope he arrives early.

❌ É melhor que a gente começe logo.

Incorrect — ç is never written before e; começar becomes comece.

✅ É melhor que a gente comece logo.

It's better that we start soon.

❌ Quero que vocês falam mais devagar.

Incorrect — falam is the indicative; the subjunctive uses the -e ending: falem.

✅ Quero que vocês falem mais devagar.

I want you all to speak more slowly.

❌ Talvez eu trabalho amanhã.

Incorrect — talvez triggers the subjunctive trabalhe, not the indicative trabalho.

✅ Talvez eu trabalhe amanhã.

Maybe I'll work tomorrow.

Key Takeaways

Method: eu present indicative → drop -o → add -e, -es, -e, -emos, -em.
Eu and ele/ela/você forms are identical (fale = fale).
Spelling fixes keep the sound: ficar → fique (c→qu), chegar → chegue (g→gu), começar → comece (ç→c).
These spelling changes match the preterite eu form (fiquei, cheguei, comecei) — learn the swap once.

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