Breakdown of Eu não quero desistir de estudar português.
Questions & Answers about Eu não quero desistir de estudar português.
You can drop Eu.
Portuguese is a pro‑drop language: the verb ending already shows the subject, so both are correct:
- Eu não quero desistir de estudar português. – More explicit, can add emphasis to I.
- Não quero desistir de estudar português. – Very natural in everyday speech.
In neutral contexts, people in Portugal often omit Eu unless they want to stress I (as opposed to someone else).
In Portuguese, desistir almost always comes with de:
- desistir de algo – to give up something
- desistir de fazer algo – to give up doing something
So the pattern is:
- desistir de + noun:
- desistir do curso – give up the course
- desistir de + infinitive:
- desistir de estudar – give up studying
Saying desistir estudar is ungrammatical. You must keep de.
All three can involve stopping, but the nuance is different:
- desistir de estudar – give up studying (idea of abandoning a goal after difficulty / discouragement)
- parar de estudar – stop studying (can be temporary or final, more neutral)
- deixar de estudar – stop studying / no longer study (often sounds more permanent or factual)
Examples:
- Ele parou de estudar por hoje. – He stopped studying for today. (probably temporary)
- Ele desistiu de estudar português. – He gave up on studying Portuguese. (gave up the idea/goal)
- Ele deixou de estudar português. – He no longer studies Portuguese. (factual state now)
Your sentence with desistir emphasizes not giving up.
Both are possible, but they are not used the same way:
- Eu não quero desistir de estudar português. – Neutral, most natural way to say it.
- Eu quero não desistir de estudar português. – Grammatically OK but sounds marked, a bit heavier, and is rarely said in everyday speech.
In Portuguese, the usual placement of não is before the conjugated verb:
- Eu não quero…
- Nós não falamos…
- Eles não estudam…
You normally only move não when you want very specific emphasis or in certain literary/stylistic contexts.
You can say desistir do português, but the nuance changes:
- desistir de estudar português – give up the activity of studying Portuguese
- desistir do português – give up on Portuguese (the language/course) altogether
In practice, they will often be understood similarly, but:
- desistir de estudar português is slightly more explicit and neutral.
- desistir do português sounds more like abandoning Portuguese as a whole (the language, the subject, the idea).
For learners, desistir de estudar português is the clearer and more typical form.
In Portuguese, names of languages and nationalities are written with a lowercase initial, unless they are at the beginning of a sentence:
- Eu estudo português. – I study Portuguese.
- Ele é português. – He is Portuguese.
- O Português é uma língua românica. – Capitalized here only because it starts the sentence.
So português is lowercase in the middle of the sentence. This is a general rule: inglês, francês, espanhol, alemão, etc.
After verbs like querer, when you talk about an action you want to do, Portuguese normally uses the infinitive:
- Quero estudar. – I want to study.
- Não quero comer. – I don’t want to eat.
- Ele quer viajar. – He wants to travel.
So the structure is:
- (Eu) não quero + infinitive → não quero desistir, não quero estudar, etc.
You cannot say não quero desistir de estudo português here; you must use de estudar português.
You can, but it changes the feel slightly.
In Portuguese (especially in Portugal):
- For languages after verbs like falar, estudar, aprender, the article is often omitted:
- Estudo português.
- Gosto de falar inglês.
Adding the article:
- estudar o português is not wrong, but can sound a bit more specific, like the Portuguese course / the Portuguese language as a subject in some concrete context.
In everyday European Portuguese, estudar português (without o) is the most natural and neutral way to say it.
No. Desistir is not reflexive in standard Portuguese in this sense.
You say:
- Eu desisti do curso. – I gave up the course.
- Ele desistiu de estudar. – He gave up studying.
You do not say desisti-me de estudar here. That would sound wrong or, at best, very strange and dialectal.
In Portuguese, the present tense often covers both present and near future intentions, just like English want to:
- Eu não quero desistir de estudar português.
→ I don’t want to give up studying Portuguese (now / as a general intention).
Context decides whether it is a current feeling, a general decision, or a future plan. You do not need a future tense like quererei here; that would be odd.
In European Portuguese (rough guide, using English-like hints):
- Eu – like “ehw” (not a strong “ee-oo”)
- não – nasal sound, roughly “nowng” (the ão is strongly nasal)
- quero – “KÉ-ru”, with é like in “get” and final u like a very short oo
- desistir – “d(ə)-zees-TEER” (first e often reduced to a weak uh sound)
- de – very short, like “d(ə)”
- estudar – roughly “sh-tu-DAR” (initial e often weak, s before t can sound like sh in European Portuguese)
- português – “poor-too-GÊSH” (final ês with a long closed e and a soft sh sound)
Spoken quickly, many vowels reduce, so you might hear something close to:
- “Ew não kéru d’zishtír d’shtuDÁR purtugÊSH.”