Ligar (To Connect/Call) — Full Conjugation

Ligar is a workhorse verb of everyday European Portuguese. It means, at its core, to connect — and from that base meaning it branches out to cover to call (on a telephone), to turn on (an appliance or device), to attach importance to something, and, in the negative, to ignore. A single conversation at work or at home is likely to use ligar in three or four of its senses without anyone noticing, because native speakers simply do not think of them as separate verbs.

Morphologically, ligar is a regular first-conjugation verb, but it belongs to the family of verbs that undergo a predictable spelling change: the stem-final g becomes gu before e to preserve the hard /g/ sound. This affects the 1st-person singular of the preterite (liguei, not ligei) and the entire present subjunctive (ligue, ligues, ligue, liguemos, liguem). The change is purely orthographic — the pronunciation is identical to what you would expect from the written g — but if you write ligei, Portuguese readers will flinch as if you had misspelled a common word, because you have.

Header

Present indicative — presente do indicativo

No spelling change in the present indicative — all endings begin with o or a, so g stays as g.

Imperfect indicative — pretérito imperfeito

Preterite indicative — pretérito perfeito simples

Spelling change: the 1st-person singular is liguei, not ligei. Every other form keeps the bare g because the ending begins with a back vowel.

Note: European Portuguese distinguishes the 1st-person plural present ligamos from the preterite ligámos by the acute accent. Brazilian Portuguese writes both without the accent.

Pluperfect indicative, simple — pretérito mais-que-perfeito simples

Pluperfect indicative, compound — pretérito mais-que-perfeito composto

Present perfect — pretérito perfeito composto

Simple future — futuro do indicativo simples

No spelling change — the future is built on the full infinitive ligar, which preserves the g before -ar-: ligar-ei, ligar-ás…. The e that would trigger the change only comes after r, so no gu is needed.

Future perfect — futuro perfeito

Conditional — condicional

Conditional perfect — condicional composto

Present subjunctive — presente do conjuntivo

Spelling change everywhere: the present subjunctive endings all begin with e, so g becomes gu in every form.

Imperfect subjunctive — imperfeito do conjuntivo

No spelling change — endings begin with a, so g stays.

Future subjunctive — futuro do conjuntivo

No spelling change — the infinitive-based endings begin with a consonant or e in the full form ligarem etc., but the stem is ligar unchanged.

Present perfect subjunctive — pretérito perfeito do conjuntivo

Pluperfect subjunctive — pretérito mais-que-perfeito do conjuntivo

Future perfect subjunctive — futuro perfeito do conjuntivo

Imperative — imperativo

The subjunctive-based forms (você, nós, vocês, and all negatives) carry the spelling change. The tu affirmative, derived from the 3rd-person singular present indicative, does not.

Affirmative:

Negative:

Personal infinitive — infinitivo pessoal

Compound personal infinitive — infinitivo pessoal composto

The many meanings of ligar

Ligar is one of those verbs that has fanned out from a single concrete root (Latin ligare, "to bind / tie") into a whole network of related meanings. In modern European Portuguese, the main ones are:

1. To call (on the telephone)

This is the most frequent everyday use. In European Portuguese, ligar is the default verb for phoning someone — telefonar still exists and is correct, but ligar is more common in speech.

Construction: ligar a / para alguém (to call someone). Both prepositions are used in European Portuguese; ligar a is slightly more traditional, ligar para is also widespread and is the default in Brazilian Portuguese.

An alternative is fazer uma chamada (to make a call), which is slightly more formal and focuses on the act rather than the recipient.

2. To connect / attach

The original root meaning, still alive. Used for connecting physical objects, devices to networks, places to each other, or ideas.

Construction: ligar X a Y (connect X to Y).

3. To turn on / switch on

Used for appliances, lights, engines, computers — anything electrical or mechanical. The opposite is desligar (to switch off).

4. To care about / pay attention to (with a)

Ligar a algo / a alguém = to give importance to something / to pay attention to someone. This sense is very common in the negative: não ligar = to ignore, not care about.

5. Fixed expressions

• ligar importância a — to give importance to.
• ligar o nome ao autor — to put a name to the author (figuratively: to connect a name with the person).
• Não ligues! — Never mind! / Don't worry about it!

Example sentences in context

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Ligar is a regular -ar verb with one orthographic quirk: g → gu before e. This affects the 1st-person singular preterite (liguei) and the entire present subjunctive (ligue, ligues, ligue, liguemos, liguem), plus all subjunctive-derived imperative forms.
• The spelling change is purely graphic — pronunciation does not change. It exists because Portuguese g before e / i would otherwise be pronounced /ʒ/ (as in gelo), so writing gu preserves the hard /g/.
• Ligar has four main meanings: (1) to call (telephone), (2) to connect (physically or logically), (3) to turn on (devices), (4) to care about / pay attention to (with a). Context and construction tell you which is meant.
• For telephone calls: both ligar a alguém and ligar para alguém are used in European Portuguese. Telefonar and fazer uma chamada are alternatives.
• Não ligar meaning "not care / ignore" is extremely common. Não ligues! = "Don't worry about it!"
• The opposite of ligar (in sense 3) is desligar (to turn off / hang up / disconnect). It conjugates identically with the same spelling change.
• 1st-person plural preterite ligámos carries an acute accent in European Portuguese, distinct from the present ligamos.