Forming the Gerúndio

The Portuguese gerúndio is the verb form ending in -ando, -endo, -indo (falando, comendo, partindo). It is the equivalent of the English -ing form in shape — and, remarkably, it is one of the most regular pieces of Portuguese morphology. Almost every verb, including most so-called "irregular" verbs, forms its gerund by a predictable class-based ending swap. This page walks through the mechanics: the rule, the three conjugation classes, the tiny set of truly irregular forms, and why the gerund never inflects for person.

Before you read on, a reminder: how the gerund is used in European Portuguese is a different question from how it is built. The gerund in EP is used much less than in Brazilian Portuguese, because EP expresses the progressive with estar a + infinitive rather than with estar + gerund. This page is purely about formation. For the progressive, see estar a + infinitive; for the full picture of when the gerund is used in EP, see the gerúndio overview.

The formation rule

The rule is as simple as Portuguese morphology ever gets:

Take the infinitive. Drop the final -r. Add -ndo.

That single operation produces the gerund of almost every verb in the language. The vowel that survives between the stem and -ndo depends on the conjugation class — a for -ar verbs, e for -er verbs, i for -ir verbs — but the mechanical step is identical across classes.

Notice what this means: the gerund ending is always -ndo. The theme vowel (a/e/i) is whichever vowel was already sitting at the end of the infinitive stem. No new vowels are introduced, no stress shifts, no pattern lookups. If you can identify which class a verb belongs to, you can form its gerund.

The three regular classes

-ar verbs: -ando

These are by far the largest class of Portuguese verbs, and their gerund is the most common form you will encounter.

-er verbs: -endo

-ir verbs: -indo

Stem-changing verbs don't show the change

Many -ir verbs in Portuguese have a vowel alternation in the present tense: dormir (to sleep) becomes durmo in the 1st person singular, sentir (to feel) becomes sinto, servir (to serve) becomes sirvo. These stem changes affect the present indicative and present subjunctive, and they can catch learners off guard.

But here is a small mercy: the stem change does not surface in the gerund. The gerund is built from the infinitive stem, not from a conjugated stem, so dormir → dormindo (not durmindo), sentir → sentindo (not sintindo), servir → servindo.

The one truly irregular gerund: pôr → pondo

Portuguese has a single verb that does not follow the infinitive − r + ndo rule in quite the same way: pôr ("to put / to place"). The infinitive pôr has a circumflex over the o to distinguish it in writing from the preposition por ("by / through"), but its gerund is simply pondo — no circumflex, because the stress naturally falls on the first syllable pon- and no accent is needed to mark it.

The logic is straightforward: pôr works as if it were an -er verb with the stem pon-. Historically, the verb comes from older poer — a form that is still visible in the gerund pondo, the past participle posto, and most conjugated forms. You can think of the infinitive pôr as the odd one out, and every other form as if the verb were poner (and indeed it is poner in Spanish).

Irregular verbs whose gerunds are nonetheless regular

Many Portuguese verbs are called "irregular" because their present, preterite, or subjunctive forms require memorization. But the gerund is almost always formed straight from the infinitive, regardless of how irregular the rest of the conjugation is. Here are the gerunds of the most common high-frequency irregular verbs — every one of them follows the regular rule:

Every one of these forms is predictable from the infinitive by the -r + -ndo rule. The only verb in the list that requires a warning is vir.

The vindo homograph

The gerund of vir is vindo — and the past participle of vir is also vindo. The same form does double duty.

In the first sentence, the EP progressive does not use a gerund at all — it uses a + infinitive (a vir). In the second sentence, vindo is a past participle combined with the auxiliary ter. So where does the gerund vindo show up? In the gerund uses themselves — adverbial, absolute, and the vir + gerund periphrasis:

Context disambiguates: if the form appears after ter or haver as auxiliary, it is a past participle. If it appears standalone, introducing a clause, or after vir itself (as in the periphrasis), it is a gerund. Native speakers never confuse the two because the syntax makes the role obvious.

The gerund does not conjugate for person

This is the single most important structural fact about the Portuguese gerund: it has one form, and that form never changes for subject. Whether the subject is eu, tu, ela, nós, vocês, or anyone else, the gerund stays the same.

Portuguese learners sometimes ask whether the gerund has a "personal" form parallel to the personal infinitive (falarmos "for us to speak"). The answer is no. Unlike the personal infinitive, which carries person-marking endings, the gerund is morphologically frozen. Subject identity is communicated either by context or by adding an explicit pronoun:

Here chegando is just the invariable gerund. The subject nós is identified by the explicit pronoun that follows the gerund, not by any inflection on chegando itself. There is no chegandoes or chegandos in Portuguese.

If you want a subject-marking non-finite form, the personal infinitive is the morphological tool for that job — see personal infinitive.

Common mistakes

Stem changes that appear in durmo, sinto, sirvo do not propagate to the gerund. Build the gerund from the infinitive.

The circumflex on the infinitive pôr is there to distinguish the verb from the preposition por. The gerund pondo has no such conflict, so no accent.

Ver is an atypical -er verb: the stem visible in the gerund is v-, producing vendo. This matches the pattern in its infinitive and most of its conjugated forms.

The gerund is invariable. To mark the subject, add an explicit pronoun after it — do not try to inflect the form.

Even though falando is a perfectly well-formed gerund, EP does not use it after estar to form the progressive. That is the work of estar a + infinitive. See the progressive page for why.

Key takeaways

• Formation rule: drop the final -r of the infinitive, add -ndo. Result: -ando / -endo / -indo by conjugation class.
• Stem changes in the present tense (durmo, sinto, sirvo) do not affect the gerund. Always build from the infinitive.
• The one truly irregular gerund: pôr → pondo (and all its compounds — compor → compondo, etc.). No circumflex.
• Most "irregular" verbs have regular gerunds: ser → sendo, estar → estando, ter → tendo, fazer → fazendo, dizer → dizendo, ver → vendo, ir → indo, vir → vindo, querer → querendo, poder → podendo.
• Vir is the only verb whose gerund (vindo) is identical to its past participle (vindo). Syntax disambiguates.
• The gerund is invariable: no person-marking. An explicit pronoun identifies the subject in absolute constructions.
• Formation is one thing; usage in EP is another. EP uses the gerund narrowly — it does not form the progressive with estar + gerund the way Brazilian Portuguese does.

For the progressive construction that replaces estar + gerund in EP, see estar a + infinitive. For the full direct comparison with Brazilian Portuguese, see European vs Brazilian progressive. For the other EP uses of the gerund (manner, cause, absolute clauses), see other uses of the gerund.