Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto.

In Portuguese, the subject pronoun eu (I) is usually dropped, because the verb ending already shows who the subject is. So the most neutral version is:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto.
(Today I’m going to tidy my room.)

When you add eu, you’re already adding emphasis:

Hoje eu vou arrumar o meu quarto.
= Today *I am going to tidy my room (not someone else).*

Adding eu próprio makes the emphasis even stronger:

Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto.
= Today *I myself / I personally am going to tidy my room.*

So eu próprio is an intensifier. It highlights that it’s really you who is doing it, not your mother, a cleaner, a sibling, etc.

What exactly does próprio mean in eu próprio? Is it like myself?

Yes, in this structure próprio works like English myself / yourself / himself, but with a nuance of “personally / in person / and not someone else”, more than just reflexive grammar.

Compare:

Eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto.
= I myself / I personally will tidy my room. (emphasis on who)

If you simply wanted to say you are doing it alone, you’d usually use sozinho / sozinha:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto sozinho.
= Today I’m going to tidy my room on my own.

So:

eu próprio → I myself (focus on identity: not someone else)
sozinho → by myself / alone (focus on lack of company or help)

Does próprio change for gender or number? What if the speaker is a woman?

Yes, próprio agrees with the person it refers to:

Male speaker: eu próprio
Female speaker: eu própria

Some more examples:

tu próprio / tu própria – you (sg., male / female) yourself
ele próprio / ela própria – he himself / she herself
nós próprios / nós próprias – we ourselves (all-male or mixed / all-female group)

So a woman would naturally say:

Hoje eu própria vou arrumar o meu quarto.

Can I put próprio somewhere else, like Hoje próprio eu vou arrumar o meu quarto?

No. In this meaning (as an intensifier of the pronoun), próprio normally comes after the pronoun:

✅ eu próprio
❌ próprio eu

Typical patterns:

eu próprio, tu própria, ele próprio (pronoun + próprio)
o próprio diretor, a própria mãe (article + próprio + noun: the director himself, the mother herself)

So Hoje próprio eu… is not natural. Correct options are:

Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto.
Hoje vou eu próprio arrumar o meu quarto. (more marked, strongly emphatic)

Why is there an o before meu quarto? Why not just meu quarto?

In European Portuguese, a possessive (meu, tua, nosso etc.) is usually used with a definite article:

o meu quarto – my room
a minha mãe – my mother
os meus livros – my books

So:

✅ o meu quarto (normal in Portugal)
❌ meu quarto (sounds foreign / poetic or Brazilian)

In Brazilian Portuguese, you often hear meu quarto without o, but in Portugal o meu quarto is the standard everyday form.

Could I leave out meu and just say Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o quarto?

Yes, you can, and it’s common:

Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o quarto.

In context, o quarto will usually be understood as your bedroom if you’re talking about household chores. The meaning is often the same.

However, adding meu makes it explicit that it’s your own room, not, for example, o quarto do meu irmão (my brother’s room) or o quarto das visitas (the guest room).

So:

o quarto – the room (usually “my room” by context, but not explicit)
o meu quarto – my room (explicitly yours)

What’s the difference between vou arrumar and just arrumo? Could I say Hoje arrumo o meu quarto?

Both are possible, but the nuance is slightly different.

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto.
Uses ir + infinitive → expresses a future plan or intention. Very common and natural in speech.
Hoje arrumo o meu quarto.
Simple present → can mean:
- a planned future (especially with hoje), or
- a habit (On Mondays I tidy my room).

In this particular sentence, with hoje, both are correct; vou arrumar just sounds more like a concrete plan you’ve decided on for today. The simple future (arrumarei) exists but is more formal or written; in everyday speech, vou arrumar is much more frequent.

What exactly does arrumar mean here? Is it “clean” or “organize”?

Arrumar literally means to put things in order / to put things away. In the context of a room, it usually means:

picking things up
putting objects back in their place
making the bed
generally making the room look neat

Some related verbs:

limpar o quarto – to clean the room (remove dust, mop, etc.)
organizar o quarto – to organize the room (systematically arrange things)

So:

arrumar o quarto ≈ tidy the room / straighten up the room
It often includes a bit of cleaning, but the core idea is ordering and putting away rather than deep-cleaning.

Can I drop the pronoun and just say Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, and that is actually the most neutral form:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto.

In Portuguese, you normally omit subject pronouns unless you want to emphasize them.

So we have a scale:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto. – neutral
Hoje eu vou arrumar o meu quarto. – emphasis on I
Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto. – strong emphasis: I myself, not someone else

The basic meaning (you will tidy your room today) is the same; what changes is the focus / emphasis.

Is there any special reason Hoje is at the beginning? Could it go somewhere else?

Word order in Portuguese is fairly flexible with time adverbs like hoje.

All of these are possible:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto. (very common, neutral)
Vou arrumar o meu quarto hoje. (also natural)
Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto. (adds emphasis on eu próprio)

Putting hoje at the beginning is very common when you’re anchoring the sentence in time, a bit like English.

You normally wouldn’t put it in the middle of the verb phrase:

❌ Vou hoje arrumar o meu quarto. – possible, but sounds more formal/marked, used when you really want to stress hoje (for contrast with other days).

Should there be a comma after Hoje?

In this short sentence, no comma is necessary, and in modern usage it’s usually written without it:

Hoje vou arrumar o meu quarto.
Hoje eu próprio vou arrumar o meu quarto.

You might occasionally see:

Hoje, vou arrumar o meu quarto.

The comma is not strictly wrong, but with a single short adverb like hoje, most contemporary style guides prefer no comma unless you want a slight pause for rhetorical effect.

How would I replace o meu quarto with a pronoun? Where would it go?

In European Portuguese, the direct object o meu quarto can become o (masculine singular “it”). With the adverb hoje, this usually triggers proclisis (pronoun before the verb):

Hoje eu próprio o vou arrumar.
= Today I myself am going to tidy it.

Or you can use the infinitive with an attached pronoun:

Hoje eu próprio vou arrumá‑lo.

Both are correct in Portugal; vou arrumá‑lo is very common in speech and writing.
You cannot say vou o arrumar (without moving or attaching the pronoun).