Breakdown of Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo e falar devagar.
Questions & Answers about Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo e falar devagar.
Em vez de is a fixed expression that means instead of.
- em = in / at
- vez = turn / time (as in "one time")
- de = of
Together, em vez de is used to introduce an alternative action or situation:
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo.
= Instead of me getting nervous, I’m going to take a deep breath.
It’s very common and natural in European Portuguese. Grammatically, it’s followed by:
- an infinitive (em vez de estudar),
- a noun (em vez de café),
- or, as here, de + pronoun + infinitive (em vez de eu ficar).
Both are possible:
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso…
- Em vez de ficar nervoso…
The eu makes the subject of ficar explicit: it’s clearly me who would get nervous.
In many real-life sentences, Portuguese speakers drop the pronoun:
- Em vez de ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo.
This is perfectly natural. The explicit eu is more careful/standard, and is often preferred in writing or when you want to avoid ambiguity about who is doing the action.
After em vez de, if you are followed by a verb (ficar), you must use the subject pronoun (eu, tu, ele, etc.), not the object form (mim, ti, si).
- Correct: Em vez de eu ficar nervoso…
- Incorrect: ✗ Em vez de mim ficar nervoso…
Reason: ficar is a verb, and its subject has to be eu. In Portuguese, when a preposition (like de) is followed by an infinitive verb, and you want to show who is doing that action, you use de + subject pronoun + infinitive:
- Antes de eu sair, tenho de acabar isto.
- Depois de nós jantarmos, vamos ao cinema.
Ficar nervoso in this sentence means to become/get nervous, not simply to be nervous.
- ser nervoso – to be a nervous person (a general characteristic)
- estar nervoso – to be nervous (right now, in this situation)
- ficar nervoso – to become nervous, to get nervous (a change of state)
So em vez de eu ficar nervoso = instead of me getting nervous (instead of allowing myself to become nervous in that moment).
You can, but the meaning changes slightly.
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso – focuses on the change: instead of becoming nervous.
- Em vez de eu estar nervoso – focuses more on the state: instead of being (in a state of) nervousness.
In this type of “strategy” sentence (I choose to react differently), ficar nervoso is the most natural and idiomatic choice.
Both are grammatically correct, but:
- vou respirar = I’m going to breathe / I will breathe (near future; very common in speech)
- irei respirar = I will breathe (simple future; more formal, often written, sounds heavier in everyday speech)
In European Portuguese, for spoken language, the ir + infinitive form (vou respirar, vou falar) is much more frequent and natural than the synthetic future (respirarei, falarei, irei respirar).
In respirar fundo, fundo functions like an adverb: it describes how you breathe — deeply.
So respirar fundo = to breathe deeply / to take a deep breath.
You could also say respirar profundamente, but respirar fundo is:
- shorter,
- very common in speech,
- and sounds more natural in this type of calming-self-down context.
Both mean to speak slowly, but they differ in tone and frequency:
- falar devagar – most common, very natural in everyday speech.
- falar lentamente – correct, but more formal or neutral; less used in casual conversation.
In this sentence, falar devagar fits the relaxed, self-instruction style much better than falar lentamente.
The comma separates two parts:
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso – subordinate clause (condition/alternative)
- vou respirar fundo e falar devagar – main clause (what I will actually do)
When a subordinate clause like em vez de… comes at the beginning of a sentence, Portuguese normally uses a comma before the main clause:
- Se eu tiver tempo, vou ajudar.
- Quando chegar a casa, ligo-te.
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo.
The adjective nervoso/nervosa agrees with the gender of the subject:
- eu (male speaker) → nervoso
- eu (female speaker) → nervosa
So this sentence, as written, assumes the speaker is male. If a woman is speaking, she would say:
- Em vez de eu ficar nervosa, vou respirar fundo e falar devagar.
Yes, you can:
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo…
- Em vez de eu ficar nervoso, eu vou respirar fundo…
Both are correct. Adding eu before vou:
- slightly emphasizes I (not someone else)
- can make the rhythm a bit heavier.
In normal speech, many speakers would omit this second eu, as in the original sentence. The version without the second eu is a bit more fluid and typical.
Yes, it’s natural and perfectly understandable in European Portuguese.
You will also often hear slightly shorter or more colloquial versions, for example:
- Em vez de ficar nervoso, vou respirar fundo e falar devagar.
- Em vez de me enervar, vou respirar fundo e falar devagar.
(enervar-se is very common in Portugal for “to get annoyed / worked up”.)
But your original sentence is grammatically correct, clear, and sounds good in Portugal.