Present Indicative: Regular -er Verbs

The -er verbs form the second conjugation in Portuguese. To conjugate any regular -er verb in the present indicative, remove the -er infinitive ending to find the stem, then add the personal endings. The model verb for this class is comer (to eat).

The endings

Comparing -er with -ar

The first-person singular ending -o is the same for both conjugation classes. The difference lies in the characteristic vowel: -ar verbs use -a-, while -er verbs use -e-.

The pattern is consistent and predictable: wherever -ar has an a, -er has an e. If you have already studied regular -ar verbs, switching to -er is straightforward.

Practice with common verbs

Here are some of the most useful regular -er verbs in natural European Portuguese sentences, varying the subject across examples.

Other common regular -er verbs to practise with: meter (to put in), receber (to receive), compreender (to understand), conhecer (to know / to meet). To confirm these all follow the same pattern, here is viver conjugated in full:

Every regular -er verb follows this same pattern: find the stem, add the endings.

Open vs closed vowels

In European Portuguese, some -er verbs undergo a vowel quality change between forms -- the stressed e in the stem can be open or closed depending on the person. For example, with dever (to owe / must): the eu form devo has a closed ê, while deves, deve, and devem have an open é. The spelling stays the same; the difference is purely in pronunciation.

This pattern also appears in verbs like meter (meto with closed ê, metes with open é). These vowel alternations are covered in more detail on the stem-changes page.

Dever as a modal verb

The verb dever is regular in its conjugation but deserves special attention because it functions as a modal verb meaning "must" or "should". It is followed directly by an infinitive.

Its present-tense forms -- devo, deves, deve, devemos, devem -- follow the regular -er pattern exactly.

Common -er verbs that are irregular

When in doubt about whether a verb is regular, check its eu form: if it ends in a simple -o added to the expected stem (like como, bebo, vivo), the verb is almost certainly regular. If the stem changes (like faço from fazer or digo from dizer), it is irregular.

Pronunciation notes for European Portuguese

European Portuguese reduces unstressed vowels aggressively, and -er verbs are no exception. A few things to listen for:

• Final -o becomes /u/: como sounds like /ˈkomu/ rather than /ˈkomo/. This is universal in EP.
• Final -em is nasalized as /ɐ̃j̃/: comem ends with a short nasal glide, /ˈkɔmɐ̃j̃/. It is very different from the -ão of the future.
• Unstressed e in the stem often disappears: In bebemos, the first e almost drops out in fast speech, yielding something close to /ˈbbemuʃ/ -- one of the effects that makes spoken EP famously "consonant-heavy" compared to Brazilian Portuguese.
• Final -es sounds like /ɨʃ/: In comes, the -es is reduced to a short central vowel plus a soft "sh," so comes approaches /ˈkɔmɨʃ/.

Common mistakes

1. Applying the regular pattern to irregular -er verbs. Saying eu fazo instead of eu faço, or eu dizo instead of eu digo, is a very common beginner error. The -er class has many frequent irregular verbs. If you cannot find the verb's paradigm on this page or in the tables above, check the dedicated page first before assuming it follows the regular pattern.

2. Confusing -em (present) with -am (different conjugation). The 3rd person plural of a regular -er verb ends in -em: comem, bebem, vivem. The 3rd person plural of -ar verbs ends in -am: falam, trabalham. Saying eles comam for "they eat" is wrong; comam is the present subjunctive of comer, not the indicative.

3. Dropping the accent on circumflex-marked -er forms. A handful of -er verbs in the present indicative carry a circumflex, notably tem / têm (for ter) and vê / veem (for ver). Even though these are irregular, the accent rules apply to comparable forms across the class: any time a 3rd person form could be confused with another verb, Portuguese writers tend to add a diacritic. The regular verbs on this page do not need accents, but be prepared for them when you meet irregulars.

4. Using você with the tu ending. Like -ar verbs, -er verbs take the 3rd person singular ending with você: Você come aqui? (correct), not Você comes aqui? (wrong). The same rule applies to o senhor / a senhora in formal address.

5. Forgetting de with gostar-style verbs. Although gostar is an -ar verb, the mirror trap appears with -er verbs like depender (to depend) and compreender (to understand): depender de, gostar de, precisar de. Watch for verbs that demand a preposition before their complement. Dependo do resultado -- not Dependo o resultado.

For a complete overview of the -er conjugation across all tenses, see Second Conjugation: -er Verbs. For the three conjugation classes side by side, see The Three Conjugations: -ar, -er, -ir.