Portuguese · Chapter 12 · Lesson 13 · Grammar primer

Verb groups

Prescribed by the Edexcel specification - revisited.

The short version

Brazilian Portuguese needs fewer endings

Brazil has largely standardised on você for everyday address, and você takes the same verb form as ele and ela. So one ending covers three pronouns, and the present tense a learner actually needs has four forms rather than the six most textbooks print. That is a real saving; take it.

Você fala muito bem.

You speak very well.

Ficar is regular, it just changes its spelling

Ficar writes qu before an e and parecer writes a cedilla before an a, and both look like irregularities. They are not. The sound follows the regular pattern perfectly and only the spelling shifts to protect it. File them as regular verbs with a spelling rule attached.

Eu fico em casa.

I am staying at home.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 5 min read

Practice

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10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 12 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 13 of 19 in this chapter

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