Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Nós queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso.

You don’t need “Nós” here.
In European Portuguese, the subject pronoun is usually dropped because the verb ending -mos already shows that the subject is “we”.

Natural options:
- Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso. ✅ (very normal, maybe even more common)
- Nós queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso. ✅ (also correct; can add emphasis on we as opposed to others)

So both are correct; omitting “Nós” is often more idiomatic in everyday speech.

Why is it “queremos celebrar” and not something like “queremos de celebrar” or “queremos a celebrar”?

In Portuguese, “querer” (to want) is followed directly by an infinitive verb, without any preposition:

Quero comer. – I want to eat.
Queremos celebrar. – We want to celebrate.

You do not say:

✗ queremos de celebrar
✗ queremos a celebrar

Those are incorrect. Just querer + infinitive.

What exactly is the verb form “queremos”? How is it conjugated?

“Queremos” is the present indicative, 1st person plural (we) of querer:

eu quero – I want
tu queres – you (sg. informal) want
ele / ela / você quer – he/she/you (formal) want(s)
nós queremos – we want
vós quereis – you (plural, archaic/rare) want
eles / elas / vocês querem – they / you (pl.) want

So “queremos” always means “we want” (or contextually “we wish / we would like”).

Could I say “Vamos celebrar o nosso sucesso” instead? Is there a difference from “Queremos celebrar…”?

Yes, you can say both, but they’re slightly different:

Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso.
Focuses on wanting or desiring to celebrate. It’s about intention or wish.
Vamos celebrar o nosso sucesso.
Literally “We’re going to celebrate our success.”
Sounds more like a plan or a decision: we are going to do it.

In practice, both can be used in similar contexts, but “vamos + infinitive” is closer to “we’re going to…” in English, while “queremos + infinitive” is more about wanting.

Why is it “o nosso sucesso” and not just “nosso sucesso”?

In European Portuguese, possessives (meu, teu, seu, nosso, vosso) are usually preceded by a definite article:

o nosso sucesso – our success
a nossa casa – our house
os nossos amigos – our friends
as nossas ideias – our ideas

So “o nosso sucesso” is the most natural form.
Dropping the article (“nosso sucesso”) is possible in some stylistic or poetic contexts, but in standard everyday European Portuguese, you almost always say “o nosso sucesso”.

Why “nosso” and not “nossa”? How do I know which one to use?

The possessive agrees with the noun, not with the people who possess it.

sucesso is masculine singular → o nosso sucesso
casa is feminine singular → a nossa casa
amigos (masc. pl.) → os nossos amigos
ideias (fem. pl.) → as nossas ideias

So you use:

nosso with masculine singular nouns
nossa with feminine singular nouns
nossos with masculine plural
nossas with feminine plural

What’s the difference between “celebrar” and “comemorar” in Portugal?

Both verbs are used, and in many contexts they overlap:

celebrar – to celebrate (very similar to English; also used for religious or formal ceremonies, e.g. celebrar uma missa – celebrate a mass)
comemorar – to mark, commemorate, or celebrate an event (often a date, anniversary, historical event)

For “celebrate our success”, both are possible:

Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso.
Queremos comemorar o nosso sucesso.

In everyday speech in Portugal, “comemorar” can sometimes sound a bit more formal or tied to specific occasions, but “celebrar” is very common and fully natural too.

Is “sucesso” used like English “success”? Can it also mean “a hit” (like a successful song)?

Yes, sucesso is very close to English “success”:

tivemos muito sucesso – we had a lot of success
foi um grande sucesso – it was a big success / a hit
o nosso sucesso – our success (in general)

It can mean both general success and a successful thing (a hit: a song, a film, etc.), depending on context.

How would I pronounce “queremos” and “nosso” in European Portuguese?

Approximate European Portuguese pronunciation:

queremos: /kə-ˈɾe-muʃ/
- que- like “kə” (schwa sound), not “keh”
- -re- like “reh” with a tapped r (like a quick “tt” in American “water”)
- final -mos sounds like “mush” but with a very short u, often close to “muʃ”
nosso: /ˈnɔ-su/
- nó- with an open “o”, like “naw”
- -sso like “soo”, but the ss is strong (like English “s” in “sun”)

Stress:

QUE-re-mos → stress on re
NÓ-ssu → stress on nó

Could I change the word order, like “Nós queremos o nosso sucesso celebrar”?

No, that word order is unnatural and incorrect in standard Portuguese.

The normal order is: Subject – Verb – (other verbs) – Object

So:

Nós queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso. ✅
Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso. ✅ (dropping the subject pronoun)

Putting “celebrar” after the object (o nosso sucesso) doesn’t work in this sentence.

If I add an object pronoun (like “We want to celebrate it”), where would it go?

For “We want to celebrate it,” where “it” stands for “o nosso sucesso”, you could say:

Queremos celebrá‑lo. – We want to celebrate it.
- Here, the pronoun “o” (him/it, masculine) attaches to the infinitive celebrar, becoming celebrá‑lo.

In European Portuguese, with querer + infinitive, the most natural place for the pronoun is usually attached to the infinitive:

Quero vê‑lo. – I want to see him/it.
Queremos celebrá‑lo. – We want to celebrate it.

Using it before “queremos” is possible in specific structures (like after certain conjunctions), but for a simple sentence, celebrá‑lo is the standard choice.

Is “Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso” definitely European Portuguese, or could it also be Brazilian?

This sentence is perfectly correct in both European and Brazilian Portuguese. There is nothing in it that is specific to Portugal or Brazil.

Differences would mainly be:

Pronunciation (EU vs BR accent)
Possibly a bit more frequent omission of “nós” in European Portuguese in everyday speech

But grammatically and lexically, it works in both varieties exactly as written.

Could “queremos” ever mean “we would like to celebrate our success” rather than just “we want to celebrate it”?

Yes, context and tone can make “queremos” sound softer, closer to “we’d like”:

In a neutral or polite context, “Queremos celebrar o nosso sucesso” can be understood as “We’d like to celebrate our success.”
To be explicitly polite, people also use:
- Gostaríamos de celebrar o nosso sucesso. – We would like to celebrate our success.

But in normal conversation, “queremos celebrar…” doesn’t sound rude; it’s a standard way to express a wish or intention.