Costumar + Infinitive — Habitual Action | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

English says "I usually wake up early" or "I tend to eat light lunches." Portuguese has a single verb that does this work: costumar. Combined with an infinitive, costumar packages the idea of habitual, customary, or typical action into one compact construction. It is one of the everyday tools of European Portuguese — you will hear it constantly whenever Portuguese speakers talk about routines, preferences, and what is typical for them.

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Costumar takes the infinitive directly — no preposition. This makes it unusual among periphrastic verbs, most of which require a or de before the infinitive. Write costumo fazer (I usually do), never costumo a fazer or costumo de fazer. The bare infinitive is the correct link.

Conjugation

Costumar is a regular -ar verb, so the present indicative follows the standard pattern. The tricky part is not the conjugation — it is remembering that no preposition follows.

Person	costumar (present)	Example with fazer
eu	costumo	costumo fazer
tu	costumas	costumas fazer
ele / ela / você	costuma	costuma fazer
nós	costumamos	costumamos fazer
eles / elas / vocês	costumam	costumam fazer

The second person plural (vós costumais) is archaic in modern European Portuguese. Use vocês costumam for "you all usually do."

What costumar means

Costumar takes a bare infinitive and means "to usually do," "to be in the habit of doing," or "to typically do." The subject has a pattern — they do this regularly, as a matter of routine or character.

Costumo acordar cedo durante a semana.

I usually wake up early during the week.

A minha avó costuma fazer sopa ao almoço.

My grandmother usually has soup for lunch.

Costumas ir à praia no verão?

Do you usually go to the beach in summer?

The nuance is stronger than English "usually" — it carries a flavour of "that is my habit," "that is what I do." It is the natural way to describe your routines, a friend's preferences, or the typical behaviour of a group.

Costumar in the present vs the imperfect

This is where costumar gets genuinely useful. The tense of costumar controls the time frame of the habit.

Present: a current habit

Use the present indicative of costumar for habits that are still true today — things you still do.

Costumamos jantar por volta das oito.

We usually have dinner around eight.

Ela costuma trabalhar até tarde às quintas-feiras.

She usually works late on Thursdays.

Imperfect: a past habit, no longer current

The imperfect of costumar describes habits in the past — things someone used to do but no longer does, or at least is not currently doing.

Person	costumar (imperfect)
eu	costumava
tu	costumavas
ele / ela / você	costumava
nós	costumávamos
eles / elas / vocês	costumavam

Costumávamos encontrar-nos aos sábados para almoçar.

We used to meet on Saturdays for lunch.

Quando era criança, costumava passar os verões em casa dos meus avós no Alentejo.

When I was a child, I used to spend summers at my grandparents' house in the Alentejo.

Antigamente, o meu pai costumava jogar à bola comigo depois da escola.

Back in the day, my dad used to play ball with me after school.

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The imperfect of costumar maps very closely onto English "used to." Both constructions mark past habits while suggesting, at least by implication, that the habit no longer holds. If you want to say "I used to smoke," Costumava fumar is exactly right.

Costumar vs the plain imperfect

Portuguese has two ways to say "I used to go to the cinema every week":

Costumava ir ao cinema todas as semanas. (I used to go to the cinema every week.)
Ia ao cinema todas as semanas. (I went to the cinema every week — as a routine.)

Both are grammatical. Both express habitual past action. So what is the difference?

The plain imperfect (ia) simply situates the action in the past as ongoing or habitual — it is the default for past habits in Portuguese, and what learners meet first. See Habitual Past with the Imperfect for the full treatment.

Costumava + infinitive makes the habitualness explicit and marked. It says "this was my custom, my regular practice" rather than just "this was what happened repeatedly." It is slightly emphatic; it draws attention to the fact that the action was a pattern.

In practice, Portuguese speakers use both interchangeably in most contexts, but costumava is preferred when:

You want to contrast a past habit with the present: Costumava beber café, mas deixei. (I used to drink coffee, but I quit.)
You are listing customs or routines as part of a characterization: Costumava levantar-se às seis, costumava ler o jornal ao pequeno-almoço... (She used to get up at six, she used to read the paper at breakfast...)
The habit is being described for an interlocutor who did not know it — it is new information framed as a pattern.

Costumava correr todas as manhãs, mas agora o joelho não me deixa.

I used to run every morning, but now my knee won't let me.

Costumar vs adoitar

You may encounter the verb adoitar, a more literary or regional variant of costumar, also followed by a bare infinitive and meaning the same thing: to be in the habit of doing.

Adoita ir à missa todos os domingos. (literary / older EP)

She is in the habit of going to mass every Sunday.

Adoitar is marked as (literary) or (somewhat dated) in modern European Portuguese. You will meet it in older novels, in some regional speech, and occasionally in careful or ecclesiastical writing. In everyday conversation, costumar is the default — use it, and recognize adoitar when you see it.

Other tenses of costumar

Although the present and imperfect do most of the work, costumar is a full verb that can appear in any tense. A few examples:

Costumei correr durante anos, até me lesionar o tornozelo.

I was in the habit of running for years, until I injured my ankle. (preterite — closes off a period of habit)

Costumarão passar as férias no Algarve, como sempre.

They'll probably spend the holidays in the Algarve, as always. (future — a confident inference about habits)

The future and conditional of costumar often carry a note of inference or supposition — "they will probably, as a habit," "they would typically."

Negation and questions

Negate costumar like any other verb — put não in front. The infinitive stays put.

Não costumo comer carne ao jantar.

I don't usually eat meat for dinner.

Não costumamos sair durante a semana.

We don't usually go out during the week.

Questions just invert the intonation (no word-order change needed in Portuguese):

Costumas beber café de manhã?

Do you usually drink coffee in the morning?

A que horas costumam jantar em Portugal?

What time do people in Portugal usually have dinner?

The third-person plural without a subject pronoun (costumam jantar) often has an impersonal "people" reading — it is a natural way to ask about general customs.

What costumar does NOT mean

Costumar is not a way to say "to become accustomed to" in Portuguese. For that, use the reflexive acostumar-se a or habituar-se a:

Já me acostumei ao clima de Lisboa.

I've gotten used to Lisbon's weather.

Ela habituou-se a trabalhar em casa.

She got used to working from home.

Costumar is only about being in the habit of doing something, not about the process of acquiring that habit.

Common mistakes

❌ Eu costumo a acordar cedo.

Incorrect — costumar takes the infinitive DIRECTLY, with no preposition.

✅ Eu costumo acordar cedo.

I usually wake up early.

This is the single most common error. English speakers, influenced by the pattern of other periphrastic verbs like começar a or continuar a, insert a after costumar. Do not. Costumar + bare infinitive is the only correct form.

❌ Costumo de beber chá à tarde.

Incorrect — no 'de' either.

✅ Costumo beber chá à tarde.

I usually drink tea in the afternoon.

Similarly, de is wrong. There is no linker between costumar and the infinitive.

❌ Estou costumado a acordar cedo.

Grammatical but means something different — 'I'm used to waking up early' (I'm accustomed to it). This is NOT the same as 'I usually wake up early'.

✅ Costumo acordar cedo.

I usually wake up early. (I have the habit.)

✅ Estou habituado a acordar cedo.

I'm used to waking up early. (I'm accustomed.)

Costumar + infinitive and estar acostumado/habituado a + infinitive look superficially similar but express different ideas. The first is about what you do; the second is about what you are used to.

❌ Costumava-me correr todas as manhãs.

Incorrect — there is no reflexive costumar-se. The verb is simply 'costumar'.

✅ Costumava correr todas as manhãs.

I used to run every morning.

There is no reflexive costumar-se. If a clitic is needed, it belongs to the main verb: Costumávamos ver-nos aos sábados (We used to see each other on Saturdays) — the -nos is the reflexive of ver, not of costumar.

❌ Ele costuma ser médico.

Odd — 'usually' with a stable profession doesn't make sense. Use plain 'ser' for profession.

✅ Ele é médico.

He's a doctor.

Costumar is for habitual actions — things someone does. A profession, an identity, or a permanent quality is not a habit. Don't pair costumar with ser for identity.

Key takeaways

Costumar + infinitive is the standard way to express habitual action in European Portuguese: "I usually do," "I'm in the habit of doing."
Take the infinitive directly — no preposition. Costumo fazer, never costumo a fazer.
Regular -ar conjugation: costumo, costumas, costuma, costumamos, costumam.
Present costumar = current habit. Imperfect costumava = past habit, often translated "used to."
The plain imperfect (ia ao cinema) and costumava + infinitive (costumava ir ao cinema) overlap for past habits; costumava is more explicit and often preferred for contrasts with the present.
Adoitar is a literary/older synonym — recognize it, but use costumar yourself.
Do not confuse costumar (to usually do) with estar acostumado a / habituar-se a (to be / get used to). Different meanings.