Complete Irregular Verb Guide

About thirty verbs carry most of the irregularity in Portuguese — and these same thirty are among the most common verbs in the language, so learners meet them immediately. The trick is to recognise that the irregularities are not random: they fall into a small number of patterns, and once you see the pattern the forms fall into place. This page groups the top irregular verbs by shared behaviour and gives you the diagnostic forms for each.

How to read an irregular verb

Four forms tell you almost everything about a Portuguese verb:

1. 1sg present indicative (eu form) — reveals stem irregularities that propagate through the whole present subjunctive.
2. 3sg preterite (ele form) — reveals irregular preterite stems that propagate through the whole imperfect subjunctive and future subjunctive.
3. 1pl future — reveals contracted stems (farei, direi, trarei).
4. Past participle — reveals irregular participles (feito, dito, visto, posto, aberto).

For each verb below, you get these four forms plus a note on what else is irregular. The quickest way to learn an irregular verb is to memorise its eu form and its ele preterite — those two open the door to almost every other form.

Group 1: The six heavyweights — ser, estar, ir, ter, haver, dar

These six are the most irregular verbs in the language. They are also — not coincidentally — among the ten most frequent verbs, so learners meet them at A1.

Note how ser and ir share a preterite (fui, foste, foi, fomos, foram) — context disambiguates.

Full paradigms: ser, estar, ir, ter, haver, dar.

Group 2: Radical changers — vir, ver, ler, crer

These verbs show vowel alternations in the present tense and surprising preterites. Their conjugation looks alien if you're expecting a regular -er or -ir verb.

Watch out for: vir and ver are dangerously similar. The present is venho/vens/vem/vimos/vêm (vir) vs vejo/vês/vê/vemos/veem (ver). The preterites look almost identical: vim/vieste/veio/viemos/vieram (vir) vs vi/viste/viu/vimos/viram (ver). Note that nós vimos is both the present of vir and the preterite of ver — context fixes the meaning.

Participles and gerunds of vir and ver are easy to mix up: vir has past participle vindo (identical to its gerund, also vindo), while ver has past participle visto and gerund vendo. Keep vindo (come) and visto (seen) strictly apart.

Group 3: Contracted future / conditional — fazer, dizer, trazer

Three verbs lose a syllable in the future and conditional. The full infinitive is NOT used as the stem — instead, a contracted stem appears. This is the only place in the language where the future isn't built from the full infinitive.

The same contracted stem runs through the whole future and the whole conditional: farei, farás, fará, faremos, farão / faria, farias, faria, faríamos, fariam. Irregular preterites propagate through the imperfect subjunctive and future subjunctive: fizesse, fizeres; dissesse, disseres; trouxesse, trouxeres.

Participles: fazer and dizer have irregular participles (feito, dito) used in compound tenses. Trazer keeps the regular trazido. Learn the trio feito / dito / visto together — they are the three most frequent irregular participles and appear in thousands of compound constructions.

Group 4: The pôr family

Pôr (to put) is a verb all by itself — a third-conjugation verb with unique endings. Its compounds (compor, dispor, opor, propor, repor, supor, impor, depor) all conjugate exactly the same way. Learning pôr gives you all of them for free.

Spelling note: the infinitive is pôr with a circumflex accent on the o — a rare "strong" diacritic whose sole job is to distinguish this verb from the preposition por ("by, through"). The 3sg preterite is pôs (with circumflex) vs the present 3sg põe (with tilde).

See the dedicated pôr reference for the full paradigm.

Group 5: Saber and caber — the -be- preterites

Saber (to know) and caber (to fit) share an unusual preterite stem in -be-, and both have a 1sg present in -bo.

The preterite of saber (soube / soubeste / soube / soubemos / souberam) has a specific meaning twist: in the preterite, saber means "to find out," not "to know":

Group 6: Querer, poder — distinct stems across paradigms

Querer (to want) and poder (to be able) show multiple stems across different tenses — nothing predictable from the infinitive alone.

Querer preterite: quis / quiseste / quis / quisemos / quiseram. The imperfect subjunctive — quisesse / quiseres — is very common with polite requests.

Poder preterite: pude / pudeste / pôde / pudemos / puderam. Note the contrast between pôde (3sg preterite, with circumflex) and pode (3sg present, unaccented).

Like saber, these verbs have meaning shifts in the preterite: quis means "tried" or "wanted to (and succeeded/failed)"; pude means "managed to" or "was able to (on that occasion)."

Group 7: Stem-changers e → i (pedir, servir, seguir, medir, vestir, repetir, sentir, mentir…)

A whole class of -ir verbs change e → i in the 1sg present (and therefore throughout the present subjunctive). Elsewhere in the present, the e stays. Outside the present, they are regular.

Notice the spelling-change pairs in -cer / -guir: peço / peças (c replaces ç rules), sigo / sigas (g replaces gu before a/o). These are orthographic adjustments, not new irregularities — see spelling changes.

Full class coverage: e → i stem changes.

Group 8: Stem-changers o → u (dormir, cobrir, descobrir, subir, engolir, tossir…)

Parallel to the e → i class: some -ir verbs change o → u in the 1sg present and throughout the present subjunctive.

Subir follows a slightly different pattern: 1sg is regular (subo), but the u appears in 2sg, 3sg and 3pl present: subo / sobes / sobe / subimos / sobem. (The same is true of fugir, sacudir and a few others.)

Full class coverage: o → u stem changes.

Group 9: -ear vs -iar verbs

Verbs in -ear (passear, pentear, recear) all insert an i in stressed syllables: passeio, passeias, passeia, passeamos, passeiam. This is fully systematic.

Verbs in -iar split into two camps:

Camp A — insert an e (rare, fixed list): odiar, incendiar, mediar, ansiar, remediar. Paradigm: odeio / odeias / odeia / odiamos / odeiam.

Camp B — regular (most): estudar is actually -ar, but enviar, confiar, variar follow the regular pattern: envio / envias / envia / enviamos / enviam.

Full coverage: verbs in -ear, verbs in -iar.

Group 10: -uir and -uzir verbs

-uir verbs (construir, destruir, contribuir, distribuir, influir) are mostly regular with a few spelling twists — the stressed í in the 2sg/3sg/3pl present gets a written accent: construo / constróis / constrói / construímos / constroem. Some modern style guides drop the accent; follow your main reference.

-uzir verbs (produzir, reduzir, conduzir, traduzir, seduzir) show a shortened 3sg present: produz rather than produze. They are otherwise regular. Preterite: produzi / produziste / produziu / produzimos / produziram.

See -uir verbs and -uzir verbs.

Group 11: Defective verbs — not enough forms

A small group of verbs is defective: some forms simply don't exist or are avoided. The poster child is falir ("to go bankrupt"), which has no 1sg, 2sg, 3sg or 3pl present indicative forms — only the "boots" (nós, vós — falimos / falis). Other defectives include abolir, banir, colorir, demolir, reaver. Speakers systematically rephrase ("vou à falência" instead of *falo).

See the defective verbs list for the complete catalogue.

Irregular past participles (critical list)

Many compound tenses hinge on getting the participle right. Here is the minimum set to know at B1:

The last five rows are double participles: a regular form used with ter (tinha morrido) and a shorter form used with ser or estar (foi morto, está morto). See double participles.

Mesoclise applicability

A few irregulars are worth flagging for mesoclise — the literary placement where a clitic sits between the future/conditional stem and the ending (dar-te-ei, dir-lhe-ia).

For irregular futures like farei, direi, trarei, porei, mesoclise splits after the contracted stem: fá-lo-ei (I'll do it), di-lo-ás (you'll say it), trá-lo-emos (we'll bring it). This is formal / literary and rare in speech — see mesoclise modern usage.

Strategy: how to learn these

1. Prioritise Group 1 (ser, estar, ir, ter, haver, dar). They account for about 30% of verb usage by frequency.
2. Then fazer, dizer, ver, vir, poder, querer, saber — another 15% of usage.
3. For stem-changers (groups 7 and 8), learn the 1sg present and 1sg subjunctive; everything else cascades.
4. Keep the irregular participle list on your wall and check compound tenses against it.
5. Let the three contracted futures (farei, direi, trarei) anchor the patterns of the future tense in your head — they are the only real irregularities in that tense.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Most irregularity clusters in 30 high-frequency verbs — memorising them is high-yield.
• Diagnostic forms: 1sg present (opens the present subjunctive), 3sg preterite (opens the imperfect and future subjunctive), 1pl future (shows contractions), past participle (powers compound tenses).
• The three contracted futures farei, direi, trarei are the only deep irregularities in the future.
• Double participles (aceite, entregue, morto) pair with ser/estar; regular forms (aceitado, entregado, morrido) pair with ter.
• Stem changes (e → i, o → u) look scarier than they are — they affect 1sg present only in predictable ways.
• When in doubt, consult the individual verb reference pages.