Portuguese/Contents/BPL1/Quarta lição

Verb "ter"/ Verbo ter

The verb to have is another important verb in Portuguese. It's an irregular verb:

See some examples:

Nós temos um cachorro. ("We have a dog.")

Eles têm uma bela casa. ("They have a beautiful house.")

The verb "ter" means "to have" in the sense of "possess", but, whenever followed by que or de, also can design some obligation, meaning "to have to" or "must". Frequently "ter que" means "to need to" as well.

See some examples:

Nós temos de ser amigos. ("We have to be friends.")

Eles têm que trabalhar? ("Do they need to work?")

Ele não tem que voltar para casa, mas eu tenho. ("He doesn't have to go back home, but I must.")

Past imperfect indicative of regular verbs/Pretérito imperfeito do indicativo de verbos regulares

Conjugation rules:

• the second conjugation (er-verbs) is equals to the third conjugacion (ir-verbs), only changing the stem vowel e of er-verbs by i.
• the first person singular (eu) is equals to the third person singular (ele/ela).
• the second person singular (tu) is equals to the third person singular (ele/ela) plus -s.
• the third person singular (ele/ela) takes the stem vowel plus -va in first conjugation (ar-verbs) and -a in third conjugation (er and ir-verbs), noting that er-verbs have the stem vowel replaced by -i.
• the first person plural (nós) takes the stem vowel plus -vamos (ar-verbs) or -amos (er and ir-verbs). Don't forget the acute accent upon the stem vowels and to replace stem vowel in er-verbs by -i.
• the second person plural (vós) takes the stem vowel plus -veis (ar-verbs) or -eis (er and ir-verbs). Don't forget the acute accent upon the stem vowels and to replace the stem vowel in er-verbs by -i.
• the third person plural (eles/elas) is equals to the third person singular (ele/ela) plus -m.

There is a table with three examples below: "cantar" ("to sing"), "comer" ("to eat") and "partir" ("to leave").