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Portuguese grammar A2: elementary

The complete guide from A1 to C1: the rules, examples to listen to, the usual mistakes.

Level A2 covers the grammar needed to tell what happened and how things used to be in European Portuguese, to refer to people and things with pronouns, to compare and count, to say no with more than one negative word, and to give or soften an instruction.

It completes level A1

  • the present, the only tense of A1, is joined by the past tenses;
  • the pronouns of chamo-me and levanto-me are used in every person, beside the object pronouns o, a and lhe;
  • the contractions do, no and ao are joined by num, pelo, deste and naquele;
  • the imperative, used at A1 in the affirmative for tu and o senhor, is used in the negative, for vocês and with the irregular verbs;
  • queria and podia, set forms at A1, are explained as forms of the imperfeito.

It adds new tenses and constructions

  • the pretérito perfeito simples (falei, fiz, fui), the pretérito imperfeito (falava, era, tinha) and the mais-que-perfeito composto (tinha feito);
  • the past participle, and estar with a participle for a state (o museu está fechado);
  • comparison with mais, menos, tão and tanto, and the forms melhor, pior, maior, menor;
  • the words of quantity (algum, nenhum, todo, tudo) and the negative words (ninguém, nada, nem);
  • the links por isso, como, enquanto, desde que, se with the present and que after a noun.

Difficult for an English speaker

  • English has one simple past where Portuguese has two: “I went” is fui for one trip and ia for a habit; “it was” is foi or era, esteve or estava;
  • falámos (“we spoke”) and falamos (“we speak”) differ only by the accent in writing;
  • the object pronoun is placed after the verb (vejo-o), but before it after não and a question word (não o vejo);
  • English “him” is o or lhe according to the verb: esperei-o (“I waited for him”), telefonei-lhe (“I phoned him”);
  • English “for” is por or para: por dez euros, para a Ana;
  • a negative word after the verb is used together with não: Não vi ninguém (“I didn’t see anybody”).

  1. The past

    Portuguese has two simple past tenses where English has one: the pretérito perfeito simples (falei, “I spoke”) for a complete action, and the pretérito imperfeito (falava, “I spoke, I used to speak, I was speaking”) for a habit, a description or an action in progress.

  2. Pronouns

    The object pronouns of Portuguese are short unstressed words placed next to the verb: me, te, se, nos and vos, which serve as reflexive, direct and indirect objects, o, a, os, as for a direct object and lhe, lhes for an indirect one.

  3. Prepositions

    Portuguese prepositions combine in writing with the article and the demonstrative that follow them: de + o is do, em + um is num, por + a is pela, de + este is deste.

  4. Participles

    The past participle is the form of the verb used after ter in the compound tenses and, as an adjective, after a noun or after estar.

  5. Nouns, adjectives and comparing

    A few groups of nouns and adjectives have plurals and genders that differ from the general rules of A1: the nouns in -ão, the masculine nouns in -a, the nouns with one form for both numbers.

  6. Quantity and negation

    The words of quantity are placed before the noun and agree with it (muitas pessoas, algum tempo, toda a semana), while tudo, nada, alguém and ninguém are used alone and do not change.

  7. The imperative

    The imperative gives an instruction, a piece of advice or an invitation.

  8. Questions and exclamations

    In a Portuguese question, a preposition is placed before its question word, never at the end; in speech the question word may be placed last, and confirmation is asked for with não é?.

  9. Linking sentences

    Two sentences are linked by a conjunction that expresses a result (por isso), a reason (pois, como), a time (enquanto, desde que) or a condition (se), by que after a verb of saying or thinking and after a noun, or by an infinitive after a verb.

  10. Spelling

    Words spelt alike but different in sound and meaning are told apart by a written accent: e and é, esta and está, pais and país, tem and têm, a, à and há.

  11. New verbs

    Verbs formed with a prefix on a known verb are conjugated like that verb: refazer like fazer, manter like ter, propor like pôr, prever like ver.

Contents · Portuguese grammar