Irregular Present Subjunctive

A handful of extremely common verbs refuse to play by the eu-form recipe. Their present subjunctive forms are genuinely irregular and must be memorized outright. The good news is that there are not many of them — maybe fifteen verbs in serious circulation — and most are verbs you will use every day. Once you know these by heart, the entire subjunctive system in Portuguese is open to you.

This page lists them by frequency and importance. The big seven at the top are non-negotiable: you will use them in nearly every subjunctive sentence you ever speak. The remaining verbs are still essential but less stem-dominant. Master the top tier first, then work through the rest.

Why these verbs are "different"

For regular verbs, the subjunctive stem comes from the eu form of the present indicative, which already reflects most Portuguese morphology. But some verbs have a separate, older stem that only surfaces in the subjunctive. Compare ser: the indicative eu sou would never yield soa or sea — instead, Portuguese draws on an inherited stem sej- for the subjunctive, giving seja. There is no way to derive seja from sou. You simply learn it.

Some of these verbs trace their irregularities to Latin. Saiba comes from Latin sapiam. Haja comes from habeam. These forms have been preserved intact for two millennia, and they show no sign of regularizing. You inherit them as part of the price of admission to Portuguese.

The big seven — learn these first

These are the workhorse irregular subjunctives. They appear constantly in speech, writing, and every kind of register.

1. ser (to be — permanent/essential)

Note the idiom seja onde for / seja quem for / seja como for ("wherever it may be / whoever it may be / however it may be") — a beloved European Portuguese construction that stacks two subjunctives.

2. estar (to be — state/location)

3. ter (to have)

Note that ter does partially follow the eu-form rule — tenho gives tenh-. But because the indicative eu tenho is itself irregular, the subjunctive is worth learning explicitly.

4. ir (to go)

Pay attention to the acute accents on vá and vás — they are not optional. Vamos and vão have no accent but are still the subjunctive forms (identical to the indicative forms).

5. dar (to give)

The circumflex accents on dê and dês distinguish these subjunctive forms from the preterite dei and the indicative dás. Note that under the 1990 Orthographic Agreement, the 3rd-person plural is deem (two e's, no circumflex), not the pre-reform dêem.

6. saber (to know — knowledge/skill)

7. haver (to exist / there to be — impersonal "haver")

Haver is almost always used in the impersonal 3rd-person singular (haja), meaning "there is / there are." You will meet it constantly in conditional and subjunctive constructions.

The next tier — important but secondary

These verbs are also irregular and also very common. You will need them for everyday speech, but their subjunctive forms are slightly easier because they hew closer to the eu-form rule.

8. querer (to want)

The stem queir- does not match the indicative eu quero (stem quer-). This is genuinely irregular.

9. poder (to be able to / can)

Poder technically follows the eu-form rule — posso → poss-. So it is "irregular" mainly because the indicative itself is irregular.

10. pôr (to put / to place)

The infinitive pôr wears a circumflex to distinguish it from the preposition por (by/for). In the subjunctive, the stem ponh- follows from eu ponho. All its compounds (compor, dispor, opor, propor, supor, repor, expor, impor) conjugate the same way — componha, disponha, oponha, etc.

11. ver (to see)

Built from eu vejo → stem vej-. Compounds prever (preveja), rever (reveja), antever (anteveja) follow the same pattern.

12. vir (to come)

From eu venho → stem venh-. Compounds convir (convenha), intervir (intervenha), provir (provenha) follow suit.

13. fazer (to do / to make)

From eu faço → stem faç-. The cedilla is required to preserve the /s/ sound before a.

14. dizer (to say / to tell)

From eu digo → stem dig-. The compound desdizer (to take back a statement) follows the same pattern (desdiga).

15. trazer (to bring)

From eu trago → stem trag-.

Summary table of irregular stems

A note on ir + ser = ide / vade?

No. The imperatives derived from these subjunctives (seja, vá, esteja) are all regular subjunctive forms. The archaic vós forms ide (go!) and sede (be!) are literary survivals from old Portuguese and have no place in modern speech. If you see them in a poem or a church reading, recognize them — but don't produce them.

Comparison: irregular eu forms that still follow the rule

For contrast, here are verbs whose eu form is irregular in the indicative but whose subjunctive is perfectly predictable once you start from that stem. These are not on the irregular-subjunctive list because they do follow the rule.

The distinction matters: you only have to genuinely memorize the verbs whose subjunctive stem does not come from the indicative eu. That short list is essentially ser, estar, ir, dar, saber, haver, querer, pôr. Everything else — including ter, poder, ver, vir, fazer, dizer, trazer — can be derived cleanly if you know the eu indicative.

Sample sentences mixing multiple irregular subjunctives

These are natural Portuguese sentences that string together two or more of the verbs above.

Common Mistakes

Ser is fully irregular. You cannot derive sejas from the indicative és; you have to memorize it.

The most written-and-said opening in any Portuguese letter or message. Using the indicative estás here sounds immediately foreign.

The saiba form is spelled with ai, not a, which surprises learners. This irregularity comes straight from Latin sapiam.

The acute accent on vá is part of the word. Omitting it is a spelling error.

Both the form (dê) and the accent are obligatory. De without the accent would be the preposition "of/from."

Embora is a subjunctive-only conjunction — no exceptions. And queira with its ei diphthong is genuinely irregular.

Key takeaways

• The big seven — seja, esteja, tenha, vá, saiba, haja, queira — cover most of what you will need. Drill these first.
• The next tier — possa, ponha, veja, venha, faça, diga, traga — are also vital but closer to regular.
• Accents matter: vá, vás, dê, dês are not optional. Deem (under the 1990 reform) has no circumflex.
• Most "irregular" subjunctives actually follow the eu-form rule once you know the irregular eu form. Only about eight verbs are genuinely unpredictable.
• Idiomatic phrases like seja como for, faça favor, queira sentar-se are fossilized subjunctives. Recognize them as set expressions.

Now that the shapes are in place, move on to the trigger pages: start with wishes and desires to see the subjunctive in its most common habitat.