Regular Conjugation Patterns

Portuguese organises its verbs into three regular conjugations, named after the ending of the infinitive: -ar (the first conjugation, falar to speak), -er (the second conjugation, comer to eat), and -ir (the third conjugation, partir to leave/depart). Every regular Portuguese verb belongs to exactly one of these three classes, and every form of every regular verb can be predicted by taking the stem (the infinitive minus the final -ar / -er / -ir) and adding the appropriate ending. That is the whole mechanism. Learn these three paradigms and you have the scaffolding on which thousands of verbs hang.

This page is a reference, not a tutorial. It collects every ending for every regular conjugation across every tense and mood, in one place. If you want a verb-by-verb tour with explanations, read the three conjugations compared; this page is the cheat sheet you keep open while you write.

The stem + ending mechanism

Every Portuguese verb form is made of two pieces:

1. The stem — the infinitive minus the final -ar, -er or -ir. For falar, the stem is fal-. For comer, com-. For partir, part-.
2. The ending — the piece that marks tense, mood, person and number. Different conjugations often share the same ending (or a very similar one); that is why the three paradigms look so alike.

Example: splitting a form

• falamos (we speak) = fal- (stem) + -amos (1pl present, -ar class)
• comíamos (we used to eat) = com-
  • -íamos (1pl imperfect, -er class)
• partirás (you will leave) = partir- (full infinitive) + -ás (2sg future)

Which class does a verb belong to?

You identify the class by looking at the infinitive:

Regular vs. irregular — how to tell

A regular verb is one whose stem and endings match the paradigms on this page exactly. A partially irregular verb matches the endings but has a stem that changes in some slots (stem-changing classes like sirvo/serves, durmo/dormes, odeio/odiamos). A fully irregular verb has unpredictable stems and sometimes unpredictable endings (ser, ir, pôr, fazer, etc.).

Roughly 85-90% of Portuguese verbs are regular. Another 5-8% are stem-changers, which add a tiny patch on top of the regular endings. The remaining few percent are the high-frequency irregulars (ser, estar, ter, ir, vir, fazer, dizer, dar, ver, saber, poder, querer, trazer, pôr, haver) — and because those are the most frequently used verbs, they carry far more weight in practice than their numbers suggest.

Which tenses share endings across the three classes?

The three paradigms are not three wholly separate beasts. Many of their endings overlap. Knowing which tenses converge and which diverge saves memory:

Comparison to Spanish

Spanish speakers will find this all very familiar. Spanish also has three conjugations — -ar, -er, -ir — in exactly the same arrangement. The major differences are:

• Portuguese -er and -ir overlap more than Spanish -er and -ir (Spanish preserves distinct endings in more slots).
• Portuguese -ar preterite 1pl is written with an acute: falámos (we spoke), distinguishing it from present falamos (we speak). Spanish does not make this distinction in writing (both hablamos).
• Portuguese has a future subjunctive (a living tense — se eu falar) and a personal infinitive (para nós falarmos), neither of which exists in modern Spanish.
• The Portuguese -ir class hosts more stem-changing patterns than the Spanish equivalent.

Master table: regular conjugations across all tenses

The three paradigms below are the complete regular system. Use falar (speak), comer (eat), partir (leave) as model verbs and substitute any regular verb's stem in their place.

Present indicative — eu falo, eu como, eu parto

Preterite (simple past) — eu falei, eu comi, eu parti

Imperfect indicative — eu falava, eu comia, eu partia

Notice that -er and -ir have identical imperfect endings. The only difference in this entire tense is the 1pl accent position, which is the same for both (-íamos).

Simple pluperfect (literary) — eu falara, eu comera, eu partira

This tense is literary in modern European Portuguese — you will meet it in novels and older texts, but speakers almost always substitute the compound pluperfect (tinha falado) in speech and in non-literary writing.

Future indicative — eu falarei, eu comerei, eu partirei

The future endings (-ei, -ás, -á, -emos, -eis, -ão) are identical across all three conjugations, because they attach to the full infinitive. In everyday speech, the ir + infinitive periphrastic future (vou falar) is more common; the simple future is more formal or literary.

Conditional — eu falaria, eu comeria, eu partiria

Like the future, the conditional endings (-ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -íeis, -iam) are identical across all three conjugations and attach to the full infinitive.

Present subjunctive — que eu fale, que eu coma, que eu parta

The present subjunctive swaps the thematic vowel: -ar verbs take -e endings (fale, fales...), -er and -ir verbs take -a endings. This is the classic "opposite vowel" pattern inherited from Latin. Note that -er and -ir have the same subjunctive endings.

Imperfect subjunctive — se eu falasse, se eu comesse, se eu partisse

Future subjunctive — quando eu falar, quando eu comer, quando eu partir

The future subjunctive and the personal infinitive are identical in form for regular verbs — context tells them apart. See future subjunctive vs personal infinitive.

Personal infinitive — para eu falar, para eu comer, para eu partir

Imperative — fala tu! come tu! parte tu!

The imperative has a limited paradigm: no first-person singular, and negative commands always borrow the present subjunctive.

Non-finite forms

The single-vowel diagnostic

If you need a shortcut to remember which class a form belongs to, look at the stressed vowel in the ending:

• Stressed a → -ar class (falamos, falado, falavas, falares)
• Stressed e with the -er thematic vowel → -er class (comemos, comendo, comeste)
• Stressed i → -ir class (partimos, partindo, partiste)

This diagnostic breaks for the future/conditional (which all use -ar/-er/-ir from the full infinitive) and for a few other forms, but it works in the majority of cases.

Common mistakes

How to use these tables

Pick a regular verb you want to conjugate. Find its stem (the infinitive minus -ar / -er / -ir). Pick the tense you need from the tables above. Attach the ending to the stem. That is the form.

For irregular verbs, the stem-and-ending mechanism still works but the stem changes in some slots. See irregular verb groups. For the full reference of a single specific verb, each common verb has its own page under verb reference.