Breakdown of Se continuares a estudar com paciência, tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso, pouco a pouco.
Questions & Answers about Se continuares a estudar com paciência, tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso, pouco a pouco.
Continuares is the future subjunctive form of continuar for tu.
In Portuguese, after se (meaning if) and talking about a future condition, you normally use the future subjunctive, not the present:
- Se continuares a estudar... = If you continue / if you keep studying (in the future)...
Using continuas (present indicative) would sound odd here, because it suggests a present or habitual fact, not a future possibility.
Compare:
Se continuares a estudar, vais melhorar.
If you keep studying, you will improve. (future condition)Se continuas a estudar assim, não tens tempo livre.
If you continue studying like this, you don’t have free time. (more like a current, ongoing situation)
So in this sentence, continuares is the correct tense because we are imagining a future situation depending on your choice to continue studying.
In Portuguese, many verbs that mean to start / keep / stop doing something are followed by a fixed preposition plus the infinitive.
With continuar, the usual pattern is:
- continuar a + infinitive
So you say:
- continuar a estudar – to continue (to) study / to keep studying
- continuar a trabalhar – to continue (to) work / to keep working
Saying continuar estudar is not natural. You really need that a in European Portuguese.
Also, Portuguese does not normally use the gerund here (continuar estudando) in European Portuguese speech; that structure is more typical of Brazilian Portuguese. In European Portuguese, continuar a estudar is the standard, natural expression.
Portuguese is a pro‑drop language: you can often omit subject pronouns because the verb ending tells you who the subject is:
- Se continuares a estudar... – perfectly correct without tu.
In the second part, however, you have tu próprio:
- tu próprio vais reparando...
Here tu is included for emphasis, because of próprio (“yourself”). You are stressing you yourself, not someone else, will notice your progress.
Without próprio, you could easily say:
- Vais reparando no teu progresso...
You (will) notice your progress... (no need for tu)
But when you use próprio, you normally combine it with the pronoun:
- eu próprio, tu próprio, ele próprio, etc.
So the tu appears mainly to build the expression tu próprio (“you yourself”).
Tu próprio literally means “you yourself”. It adds emphasis: you personally, not others.
- tu vais reparando no teu progresso
you will notice your progress (neutral) - tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso
you yourself will notice your progress (emphasises that you will see it with your own eyes)
Tu próprio and tu mesmo are very close in meaning; both can mean “you yourself”.
- tu próprio – common, sounds neutral to slightly formal in tone
- tu mesmo – also common, often a bit more colloquial / emphatic, depending on context
In this sentence, both:
- tu próprio vais reparando...
- tu mesmo vais reparando...
are possible. The choice is mostly stylistic; tu próprio reads very naturally in European Portuguese.
Vais reparando is ir + gerúndio (go + gerund), which in Portuguese often expresses an action that happens gradually, little by little, over time.
- tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso
≈ you yourself will gradually (keep) noticing your progress
Nuances:
vais reparando
– ongoing, progressive: you notice more and more as time passes.vais reparar (ir + infinitive)
– simple future event: you’re going to notice (at some point), less focus on gradual process.repararás (simple future)
– grammatically fine but sounds more formal/literary and is less common in everyday speech compared with vais reparar or vais reparando.
So vais reparando is chosen to highlight the gradual, step‑by‑step nature of noticing your progress.
In Portuguese, reparar has two common meanings:
to notice / to realize / to pay attention to
- Não reparei em ti. – I didn’t notice you.
- Reparaste que ele chegou? – Did you notice that he arrived?
to repair / to fix
- Foram reparar o carro. – They went to repair the car.
In everyday European Portuguese, the “notice” meaning is very frequent; that’s the one used in your sentence:
- vais reparando no teu progresso
= you will gradually notice your progress
So here it definitely means “notice”, not “repair”.
When reparar means “to notice / pay attention to”, it usually takes the preposition em:
- reparar em alguém / em alguma coisa – to notice someone / something
Examples:
- Reparei em ti na festa. – I noticed you at the party.
- Já reparaste neste erro? – Have you noticed this mistake?
In your sentence, em + o (in/on the) contracts to no:
- reparando em o teu progresso → reparando no teu progresso
So:
- reparar no teu progresso = to notice your progress
If reparar meant “to repair”, you would not use em:
- reparar o carro – to repair the car
No is a contraction of:
- em + o = no
In Portuguese, possessives usually come with a definite article:
- o teu progresso – your progress
Then, because reparar in this sense is reparar em, we add em:
- reparar em o teu progresso → reparar no teu progresso
So no teu progresso literally is “in/on the your progress”, which in natural English is just “your progress”, but Portuguese keeps the preposition and the article.
Teu agrees with the subject tu. In European Portuguese:
- tu → teu / tua / teus / tuas (your – informal singular)
- você / ele / ela → seu / sua / seus / suas (your / his / her – but often avoided because it’s ambiguous)
Since the sentence clearly uses tu:
- Se continuares... tu próprio vais...
the natural matching possessive is teu:
- no teu progresso – in your progress
If you wanted to use você instead of tu, you would normally change everything consistently:
- Se você continuar a estudar com paciência, você mesmo vai reparando no seu progresso, pouco a pouco.
Pouco a pouco is an idiomatic expression meaning “little by little, gradually”.
- Ele foi aprendendo português, pouco a pouco.
He learned Portuguese, little by little.
In your sentence:
- vais reparando no teu progresso, pouco a pouco
it reinforces the idea that the noticing of progress is gradual.
Placing pouco a pouco at the end is very natural in Portuguese for this kind of adverbial phrase. You could move it earlier:
- vais, pouco a pouco, reparando no teu progresso
but the original order is smoother and more typical in speech.
Yes. Both com paciência (“with patience” = patiently) and pouco a pouco (“little by little”) are adverbial phrases of manner. They add nuance but are not grammatically required.
For example, all of these are correct:
- Se continuares a estudar, tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso.
- Se continuares a estudar com paciência, tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso.
- Se continuares a estudar, tu próprio vais reparando no teu progresso, pouco a pouco.
Each extra phrase simply adds more detail about how the studying or the noticing happens.
Com paciência literally means “with patience”, but functionally it often corresponds to the English adverb “patiently”.
Portuguese frequently uses com + noun instead of an ‑mente adverb:
- com calma – calmly
- com cuidado – carefully
- com paciência – patiently
You could theoretically say estudar pacientemente, but in everyday European Portuguese com paciência sounds more natural and idiomatic.
The sentence is clearly European Portuguese because of:
- use of tu
- continuares (future subjunctive for tu)
- choice of teu as the possessive
A very natural Brazilian Portuguese version (more standard register) might be:
- Se você continuar estudando com paciência, você mesmo vai reparando no seu progresso, pouco a pouco.
Main differences:
- você instead of tu
- continuar estudando (gerund) instead of continuar a estudar (infinitive with a)
- seu instead of teu
The core structure vai reparando, pouco a pouco, and the meaning of reparar as “notice” are the same.