A1 Completion Path

A1 is the first checkpoint on the CEFR scale. By the time you finish it, you should be able to understand and use everyday phrases, introduce yourself and others, ask and answer simple personal questions (where you live, who you know, what things you have), and interact in a simple way with someone who speaks slowly and clearly.

This page is the grammar checklist for A1 in European Portuguese — the topics you need to have working intuitions for before you move on to A2. It is not a course syllabus; it is a map of the territory. Each item links to the dedicated grammar page where you can go deeper, and each bullet explains why the item matters at A1.

Before you start, make sure you have worked through paths/absolute-beginner first. That page covers the first 2-3 weeks of listening, pronunciation, and survival phrases. This page picks up from there and turns the survival phrases into grammatical understanding.

1. Verbs — the present indicative, fully

Every conversation in the present happens in one tense. Get it solid before you move on.

Regular verbs

Portuguese has three verb classes based on the infinitive ending: -ar, -er, -ir. Each class has its own present-tense endings. Together they cover the vast majority of verbs.

• verbs/fundamentals/ar-er-ir — the three classes explained
• verbs/present-indicative/overview — the big picture
• verbs/present-indicative/regular-ar — falar, trabalhar, comprar, gostar, estudar
• verbs/present-indicative/regular-er — comer, beber, viver, aprender
• verbs/present-indicative/regular-ir — partir, abrir, decidir

At A1 you should have automatic command of the six forms of falar, comer, partir (falo, falas, fala, falamos, falam — and the same logic for -er and -ir). No thinking required.

Key irregular verbs

These appear in the first five minutes of any real conversation. Learn them one by one, not all at once.

• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-ser — ser: sou, és, é, somos, são
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-estar — estar: estou, estás, está, estamos, estão
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-ter — ter: tenho, tens, tem, temos, têm
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-ir-vir — ir: vou, vais, vai, vamos, vão; vir: venho, vens, vem, vimos, vêm
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-fazer-dizer — fazer: faço, fazes, faz...; dizer: digo, dizes, diz...
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-haver — há (impersonal "there is / there are")
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-poder — poder: posso, podes, pode...
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-querer — querer: quero, queres, quer, queremos, querem
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-saber — saber: sei, sabes, sabe...
• verbs/present-indicative/irregular-ver — ver: vejo, vês, vê...

Ser vs Estar — the first real decision

This is the single most important distinction at A1. Ser is identity, essence, permanent traits. Estar is state, condition, location of movable things.

• choosing/ser-vs-estar — the canonical reference
• verbs/ser-estar-ficar/overview — ser, estar, and ficar compared

Get the seven homes of ser (identity, nationality, characteristics, time, material, possession, event location) and the four homes of estar (mood, location, progressive, temporary state) working intuitively. You will spend months refining this; start now.

The immediate future with ir + infinitive

Portuguese has a synthetic future (falarei, comerá), but at A1 you only need the colloquial future with ir + infinitive. It is identical to English going to and covers essentially all everyday future talk.

• verbs/future/ir-plus-infinitive

The informal imperative — "tu" commands

At A1 you need to give simple instructions to friends and family: come, anda, vem cá, espera, olha. The tu imperative is built from the third-person singular of the present indicative with no ending change for most verbs (ele fala → fala tu).

• verbs/imperative/overview
• verbs/imperative/tu-affirmative
• verbs/imperative/irregular-imperatives

Save negative commands (não vás, não digas isso) and formal commands (você) for A2 — the forms are different.

2. Nouns and adjectives — gender and number

Every noun is either masculine or feminine, and every adjective agrees with its noun in both gender and number. There is no neuter. There are no shortcuts. This is the most pervasive grammar feature in the language.

Noun gender

• nouns/overview — the big picture
• nouns/gender-basics — how to tell gender from the word
• nouns/gender-rules — the default patterns
• nouns/gender-exceptions — the common traps (o problema, o dia, o clima — masculine despite ending in -a; a mão, a flor — feminine with unusual endings)

At A1, you should have the basic rules internalised: nouns ending in -o are usually masculine (o livro, o carro), nouns ending in -a are usually feminine (a mesa, a casa), and you should know the most common exceptions.

Noun number

• nouns/plural-regular — add -s (livro → livros), or -es after consonants
• nouns/plural-words-ending-in-ao — the infamous -ão plural
• nouns/plural-words-ending-in-l — jornal → jornais, azul → azuis

The -ão plural is notoriously unpredictable: pão → pães, cão → cães, mão → mãos, irmão → irmãos, coração → corações. Memorise frequency word by frequency word.

Adjective agreement and placement

• adjectives/overview
• adjectives/gender-agreement — alto / alta, inteligente / inteligente
• adjectives/number-agreement — plural forms
• adjectives/placement-after-noun — the default position for most descriptive adjectives

At A1 you should place most descriptive adjectives after the noun: um carro rápido, uma casa bonita, uma pessoa simpática. A few short adjectives (bom, mau, grande, novo, velho) often appear before the noun with slight nuance shifts, but do not worry about that until A2.

3. Articles and contractions

Articles are small but critical. PT-PT uses them much more often than English does — including, notably, before possessives (o meu carro, "my car" with the article) and before most names in speech (o João, a Ana).

Definite and indefinite articles

• articles/overview
• articles/definite-basic-uses — o, a, os, as
• articles/indefinite-uses — um, uma, uns, umas

Contractions with prepositions

This is where PT-PT trips up English speakers the most. Prepositions fuse with articles obligatorily. You cannot separate them.

• articles/article-contractions — the full chart
• prepositions/contractions-a — a + o = ao, a + a = à
• prepositions/contractions-de — de + o = do, de + a = da, de + este = deste
• prepositions/contractions-em — em + o = no, em + a = na
• prepositions/contractions-por — por + o = pelo, por + a = pela

Forgetting to contract is the single most common A1 error, and it sounds noticeably foreign.

4. Pronouns

Subject pronouns

• pronouns/overview
• pronouns/subject-pronouns — eu, tu, ele, ela, nós, vocês, eles, elas
• pronouns/tu-vs-voce — the PT-PT essential
• pronouns/voce-vs-o-senhor — formal address

In PT-PT, tu is the neutral informal "you." Você is formal-to-distant. For polite address to strangers, the standard move is the third person + o senhor / a senhora or a title: Como está, senhor?, Como tem passado, doutora? Unlike Spanish, Portuguese frequently omits the subject pronoun — sou português (I'm Portuguese) is more natural than eu sou português, unless you are contrasting.

Direct object pronouns — the basics

At A1 you need to recognise and produce the simple object pronouns. Full clitic placement rules come at A2, but the basic system should be active.

• pronouns/direct-object — me, te, o, a, nos, vos, os, as
• pronouns/direct-object-placement — where they go
• pronouns/clitic-placement/enclise — the default "after the verb" pattern

At A1, focus on the default: in an ordinary positive sentence, the pronoun follows the verb with a hyphen: viu-me, conhece-o, ajudamos-te. After negation or a que-clause, the pronoun moves in front (não me viu, espero que te ajudem), but that fuller treatment is A2 territory.

Reflexive pronouns — the basics

• pronouns/reflexive-pronouns
• verbs/reflexive/overview
• verbs/reflexive/daily-routine

At A1, the reflexive system is mostly about daily routine verbs: levantar-se (to get up), lavar-se (to wash), vestir-se (to get dressed), deitar-se (to go to bed), chamar-se (to be called).

5. Possessives and demonstratives

Possessives

• pronouns/possessive-pronouns
• determiners/possessive-determiners
• determiners/articles-with-possessives — PT-PT essential

PT-PT almost always uses the definite article with the possessive: o meu carro (not meu carro), a minha casa (not minha casa). This is a major contrast with Brazilian Portuguese, where the article is often dropped. Speaking PT-PT without the articles sounds Brazilian.

Demonstratives

• determiners/demonstrative-determiners
• pronouns/demonstrative-pronouns
• pronouns/demonstrative-isto-isso-aquilo

Portuguese has a three-way demonstrative system, not the two-way English this / that:

• este / esta / isto — near the speaker
• esse / essa / isso — near the listener (or just mentioned)
• aquele / aquela / aquilo — far from both

Do not collapse the three into a binary — Portuguese speakers use all three regularly.

6. Prepositions — the basic six

A1 coverage of prepositions is about getting the six core ones right in their most common uses.

• prepositions/overview
• prepositions/a-preposition — direction, indirect object, time-at-an-hour
• prepositions/de — possession, origin, material
• prepositions/em — location, time-within-a-period
• prepositions/para — destination, purpose, intended recipient
• prepositions/por — through, by, in exchange for (full por vs para is A2)
• prepositions/com — with, accompaniment

Also critical at A1: certain verbs take specific prepositions that English does not use.

• prepositions/prepositions-with-verbs

The classic beginner example: gostar de (to like), not gostar alone.

7. Questions

• questions/overview
• questions/yes-no-intonation — no inversion; intonation alone marks the question
• questions/quem — who
• questions/que-o-que — what
• questions/onde-aonde — where / where to
• questions/quando — when
• questions/porque-por-que — why and because
• questions/como — how
• questions/quanto — how much / how many
• questions/qual-quais — which

The é que reinforcement

One of the most characteristic PT-PT question patterns is the insertion of é que after a wh-word. It is extremely common in speech and softens the question. It has no English equivalent — you simply translate it as if it were not there.

You can also say Onde moras? or Onde vives? without é que, but the é que version is more natural in conversation. Using it early makes you sound much more Portuguese.

8. Negation

• sentences/negative-sentences
• adverbs/adverbs-of-affirmation-negation

Simple negation: put não directly before the verb. That is it.

Double negation (não... nunca, não... nada) is a B1 topic but you can recognise it at A1. Unlike English, PT-PT requires the double negative when a negative word comes after the verb: não vi ninguém (I didn't see anyone — literally "I didn't see no-one").

9. Numbers, time, and dates

• expressions/time-expressions
• determiners/numeral-determiners

At A1 you need 0-1000, telling the time, days of the week, months, and dates. The construction is:

PT-PT note: quinze is used in clock time alongside um quarto (três e quinze = três e um quarto, quarter past three). Both are natural.

10. PT-PT-specific A1 items to lock down

A handful of features mark your Portuguese as European rather than Brazilian even at A1. Get these in your ear from the start.

Tu as the default informal

In Portugal, tu is the neutral informal "you" between friends, family, peers, and children. Você is formal-distant. This is the opposite of the Brazilian default, where você is the everyday form. See pronouns/tu-vs-voce and differences/tu-vs-voce-usage.

Estar a + infinitive for the progressive

PT-PT says estou a estudar (I'm studying), not estou estudando. The a + infinitive construction is the default for any ongoing action. See verbs/gerund/vs-brazilian-progressive.

Everyday PT-PT vocabulary (not PT-BR)

You will absorb these through exposure, but at A1 it helps to notice them. A handful of high-frequency words differ radically between Portugal and Brazil:

See differences/vocabulary-daily-life for the full picture.

Ficar for permanent place locations

Where does Porto sit? In PT-PT, the natural answer uses ficar: O Porto fica no norte de Portugal. É is also accepted; está sounds Brazilian for this kind of location. See verbs/ser-estar-ficar/ficar-location.

The -ão plural ear

Portuguese has three ways of forming the plural of nouns ending in -ão: -ões (corações), -ães (cães), -ãos (irmãos). You will guess wrong often at A1; the only cure is exposure and the frequency list on nouns/plural-words-ending-in-ao.

Family, food, weather — the A1 vocabulary spine

Grammar cannot compensate for a missing vocabulary. At A1 you should have active command of:

• Family: pai, mãe, irmão/irmã, avô/avó, tio/tia, primo/prima, filho/filha, marido/mulher, namorado/namorada
• Food basics: pão, queijo, leite, café, água, cerveja, vinho, peixe, carne, fruta, sopa, arroz, batata
• Weather: sol, chuva, vento, frio, calor, nevoeiro
• Body: cabeça, olhos, boca, mão, pé, costas
• Clothes: camisola, calças, sapatos, casaco, chapéu
• Colors: branco, preto, azul, verde, amarelo, vermelho, cor-de-laranja, cor-de-rosa
• Numbers 0-1000

A small but deep vocabulary, tied to a solid present tense, will carry you through most A1 interactions.

What A1 does NOT include — save for A2

Do not try to learn these at A1. They will make more sense at A2, and attempting them early can confuse the present-tense intuition you are building.

• Past tenses (pretérito perfeito, imperfeito) — the big next step
• Subjunctive mood — save for B1
• Full clitic placement rules — A2 territory
• Compound tenses with ter — B1
• Conditional — A2/B1
• Personal infinitive — B1+
• Future subjunctive — B1+

Focus on depth at A1. A learner who truly owns the present tense, the article system, gender agreement, and basic pronouns will race through A2 when they get there. A learner who skims the A1 fundamentals to get to "the good stuff" earlier usually comes back and re-learns them later.

What to do next

• paths/a2-completion — the grammar checklist for A2
• paths/english-speakers — what to focus on if English is your source language
• verbs/preterite/overview — once A1 is solid, the past tense is the doorway to A2

Every hour you put into pronunciation, listening, and present-tense fluency pays itself back later. Boa sorte!