Por vs Para in Portuguese: The Two Words for For

English says for and moves on. Portuguese has two words for it, por and para, and it will not let you choose at random, because the two point in opposite directions. para looks forward, to where something is going or what it is for. por looks back to what caused something, or through the route, the exchange or the stretch of time it passed along. Hold on to that one image and most of the uses fall out of it on their own.

If you have learned Spanish, relax: the split is almost exactly the same one Spanish makes with por and para, and for the same reasons. The main difference is that Portuguese welds por onto the article in front of a noun, which we will get to.

Para: pointing forward

Everything para does is aimed at something ahead of it.

Destination. Where you are heading:

Eu vou para casa. - I'm going home.

Ela saiu para o trabalho. - She left for work.

Purpose, usually with an infinitive, where English says to or in order to:

Preciso de dinheiro para comprar um carro. - I need money to buy a car.

Recipient. The person something is meant for:

Isso é para você. - This is for you.

Eu trabalho para ele. - I work for him.

Deadline. When something is due:

O trabalho é para amanhã. - The work is due tomorrow.

Opinion and comparison. For me, in the sense of in my view, or for in the sense of considering:

Para mim, está ótimo. - For me, it's great.

Ele é alto para a idade. - He is tall for his age.

And the phrase every learner meets early: para sempre, forever, which is a destination of sorts - the furthest one available. Vou te amar para sempre is as forward-looking as Portuguese gets.

Por: pointing back, or passing through

por covers more ground, but it has a family resemblance too: it is about the thing behind an action, or the thing it goes through.

Cause and reason. Why something happened:

Por isso eu vim. - That's why I came.

Fiz isso por amor. - I did it out of love.

Estou aqui por causa dela. - I'm here because of her.

Gratitude. Thanks is always for something already done, so it is always por:

Obrigado por tudo. - Thanks for everything.

Obrigado pela ajuda. - Thanks for the help.

Exchange and price. What you gave in return for what you got:

Comprei um carro por mil dólares. - I bought a car for a thousand dollars.

Route and means. Through, along, via, by:

Ela saiu pela porta. - She left through the door.

Falei com ele por telefone. - I spoke to him by phone.

Por aqui, por favor. - This way, please.

Duration. How long something went on for:

Fiquei lá por duas horas. - I stayed there for two hours.

Rate. Per, a:

Duas vezes por semana. - Twice a week.

On behalf of, for the sake of. Doing something in someone's place or for their good:

Faço isso por você. - I'm doing this for you (for your sake).

And the passive agent, the person who did the deed, which English marks with by:

Ele foi morto por um homem. - He was killed by a man.

por favor, please, sits here too. It is literally by favour, and nobody thinks about it any more than English speakers think about please being short for if it please you.

The one sentence that shows the whole difference

If you remember a single pair, make it this one:

Faço isso por você. - I'm doing this for you, because of you, for your sake.

Faço isso para você. - I'm making this for you, and it will be yours.

Same verb, same pronoun, different preposition, different sentence. With por, you are the reason. With para, you are the recipient. English gets away with for in both, and relies on context; Portuguese builds the context into the preposition.

Por vs para in one table

Pelo, pela, pelos, pelas: por meets the article

Here is the bit Spanish does not prepare you for. When por comes in front of the definite article, the two fuse into one word, and the fusion is not optional:

So you will almost never see por o or por a written down. It is always pelo, pela: Paguei dez dólares pelo livro (I paid ten dollars for the book), Andamos pela cidade (we walked around the city), pela primeira vez (for the first time). This is the same machinery that turns de plus o into do and em plus a into na, and the Portuguese prepositions article covers that whole family of contractions.

para does not contract in writing. In speech it does something else entirely.

Pra and pro: the para you will actually hear

Say para quickly enough, often enough, and it loses a syllable. In Brazil the spoken form is overwhelmingly pra, and para plus o becomes pro:

Vou pra casa. - I'm going home.

Vou pro trabalho. - I'm off to work.

This is not slang in the sense of being rude or marked. It is simply how the word is pronounced, and it turns up in song lyrics, text messages and the speech of every Brazilian from a teenager to a judge. Write the full para in anything formal; say pra everywhere else, or you will sound like you are reading aloud.

Por que, porque, por quê and porquê

Four spellings, two sounds, and a genuine source of confusion for Brazilians themselves:

The logic is sound once you see it. Por que is literally for what, which is exactly what a question about a reason asks. It gets an accent at the end of a sentence because a stressed one-syllable que always does. Porque, written as one word, is the answer. And porquê is the reason turned into a thing you can put an article in front of. You will hear no difference between por que and porque, only the extra stress on the accented quê forms, so the spelling mostly matters when you write.

Mistakes English speakers make

Obrigado para. The classic. Thanks looks back at something already done, so it is obrigado por, and with a noun, obrigado pelo or obrigado pela. Obrigado para sounds as wrong to a Brazilian as thanks to the coffee would to you.

Por for purpose. English for before a verb (for buying, to buy) is para plus the infinitive, every time: para comprar, never por comprar. If you can put in order to in the English, you want para.

Para for duration. For two hours feels like a destination in time, but it is a stretch you pass through, so it is por duas horas. In everyday Brazilian speech the preposition is often dropped altogether - Fiquei lá duas horas is completely natural - which is one more reason not to reach for para.

Por o. If you have just said por and an article is coming, stop and fuse them: pelo, pela. Leaving them apart is the written equivalent of a foreign accent.

Trabalho por ele or trabalho para ele? Both exist and both are right, but they say different things. Eu trabalho para ele means he is my boss. Trabalho por ele means I am doing his work in his place, or working for his sake. If you mean your employer, it is para.

How to choose, in two seconds

Ask one question: is the for pointing forward or back?

• Forward to a place, a goal, a person who will receive something, a date something is due: para.
• Back to a reason, an exchange, a thanks; or through a route, a medium, a stretch of time: por.

That covers the overwhelming majority of real sentences. The fixed phrases - por favor, por isso, por exemplo, para sempre - are worth learning whole, because they come up constantly and you should not be calculating them mid-sentence.

Both words are among the twenty most common in the language, so they will come round in almost every lesson of the Portuguese course. Before you move on, spend a minute on the word pages for por and para, then pair this article with Portuguese adverbs, the other half of this chapter, where the question stops being which word for for and becomes how.