Ter for 'There Is/Are' (Existential) | Portuguese (Brazil) Grammar

If you learn one thing that instantly makes you sound Brazilian rather than textbook-Portuguese, it is using tem for "there is" and "there are." Where formal Portuguese (and European Portuguese) says há, everyday Brazilian speech uses the existential tem: tem gente na rua, tem comida na geladeira?, não tem ninguém aqui. It is subjectless, it never changes for plural, and it conjugates normally for tense. This page drills it across the tenses so you can produce "there is/are" naturally in any time frame.

The construction: subjectless tem

Existential tem has no subject. It is not "someone has people in the street" — it is the impersonal "there exist people in the street." Because there is no subject, the verb stays in the third-person singular form for its tense, and the thing that exists comes after the verb.

Tem gente na rua esperando o ônibus.

There are people in the street waiting for the bus.

Tem comida na geladeira?

Is there food in the fridge?

Não tem ninguém aqui, a casa está vazia.

There's no one here, the house is empty.

Look at the first sentence: gente ("people") is plural in meaning and English uses "are," but Portuguese keeps tem singular. Existential tem is invariable — it does not become têm even when many things exist. This mirrors how formal há is also invariable.

💡

Existential tem never pluralizes. "There is one car" and "there are ten cars" are both tem: tem um carro / tem dez carros. The verb agrees with nothing because there is no subject — only a list of what exists.

Across the tenses

The beauty of existential tem is that you simply conjugate ter for the tense you need, always in the third-person singular.

Tense	Form	Example
Present	tem	Tem festa hoje. — There's a party today.
Imperfect (past state)	tinha	Tinha muita gente na festa. — There were a lot of people at the party.
Preterite (past event)	teve (rare for existence)	Teve briga no jogo. — There was a fight at the game.
Future	vai ter	Vai ter festa amanhã. — There's going to be a party tomorrow.

Present and imperfect — the workhorses

Tem um restaurante ótimo aqui perto.

There's a great restaurant nearby.

Quando eu era criança, tinha um parque enorme nesse terreno.

When I was a kid, there was a huge park on this lot.

Tinha is the past existential you will use most — it describes what existed as a background state. It corresponds to formal havia.

Preterite — usually avoided for plain existence

The preterite teve exists but is uncommon for simple existence. For past events that "happened," Brazilians more often reach for houve (formal) or, very commonly, aconteceu ("happened") / teve (for events with a sense of occurrence).

Teve um acidente na esquina ontem.

There was an accident on the corner yesterday.

Ontem aconteceu uma coisa estranha no trabalho.

Something strange happened at work yesterday.

Use teve when the existential thing is an event that took place (teve briga, teve show, teve acidente). For ongoing past states ("there used to be"), use tinha, not teve.

Future — vai ter

The colloquial future of existence is the periphrastic vai ter ("is going to be/have"). The synthetic future haverá is formal/written.

Vai ter show no parque no sábado, você vai?

There's going to be a concert in the park on Saturday, are you going?

Não vai ter aula amanhã por causa do feriado.

There won't be class tomorrow because of the holiday.

Why this is the most Brazilian feature of all

This is arguably the single most reliable spoken marker that separates Brazilian from European Portuguese. In Portugal, the default for existence is há across the board: há gente na rua, havia muita gente. A Brazilian who says há gente na rua in casual conversation sounds like they are reading from a textbook or speaking formally. Conversely, a European Portuguese speaker hearing tem gente na rua immediately registers it as Brazilian (or very informal).

Tem gente na rua. (Brazil, neutral spoken)

There are people in the street.

Há gente na rua. (Portugal default; Brazil = formal/written)

There are people in the street.

So há is not wrong in Brazil — it is simply formal. You will write há in an essay, a news report, or a job application, but you will say tem to a friend.

💡

Register map for Brazil: tem = spoken and informal (your default in conversation). há = formal writing and careful speech. existe(m) = a third neutral option that does agree in number (existem muitos problemas) and works in both registers. See the dedicated comparison page for choosing among them.

How this differs from English

English builds existence with "there + be": "there is," "there are," "there was." Two traps follow for English speakers:

Do not use a "be" verb. Portuguese existence is a "have" verb (tem/há), never é or está. Tem pão = "there is bread," literally "has bread."
Do not pluralize the verb. English switches "is" → "are." Portuguese keeps tem invariable regardless of how many things exist.

Tem dois cachorros no quintal.

There are two dogs in the yard. (verb stays singular 'tem')

Common Mistakes

❌ São dois restaurantes nessa rua.

Incorrect — existence is not 'ser'; use 'tem' (or 'há').

✅ Tem dois restaurantes nessa rua.

There are two restaurants on this street.

❌ Têm muitas pessoas na fila.

Incorrect — existential 'tem' is invariable; it never becomes 'têm' for plural.

✅ Tem muitas pessoas na fila.

There are many people in the line.

❌ Ontem teve um parque aqui quando eu era criança.

Incorrect — for an ongoing past state use the imperfect 'tinha', not the preterite 'teve'.

✅ Antigamente tinha um parque aqui.

There used to be a park here.

❌ Amanhã tem vai festa.

Incorrect word order — the future is 'vai ter'.

✅ Amanhã vai ter festa.

There's going to be a party tomorrow.

Key Takeaways

Existential tem is subjectless and invariable — never têm, regardless of plural.
Conjugate ter for tense: present tem, imperfect tinha (past state), preterite teve (past event, less common), future vai ter.
For past existence as a background state, use tinha; for an event that occurred, teve / houve / aconteceu.
Tem for existence is the hallmark of spoken Brazilian Portuguese; há is the formal/written equivalent.
Never use ser/estar for "there is/are," and never pluralize the verb.

Now practice Portuguese

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

Start learning Portuguese→