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Portuguese Verb Tenses Posted by on Jun 4, 2009 in Learning

For today’s interactive feature, we’re going to talk about the different verb tenses. The question is: which is the most difficult Portuguese verb tense for you?

There are a few verb tenses that I find tricky, like the future subjunctive tense (for, estiver, etc), since when I’m speaking, I sometimes confuse the eles/elas conjugation with the perfect preterite tense (past simple), since some of the conjugations are similar. But the tense that I find the most difficult is pretérito mais-que-perfeito, which never fails to perplex me. Since it’s not used very often in spoken Portuguese, I try to avoid it.

What about you?

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Comments:

  1. Jc:

    my native language is portuguese, and the reason for this tense isnt used, its because most of brazilian doesnt know how and when to use it… So, dont be so worry, if us brazilians think its complicated… but, anyway, it put here a tip about how to used it.

    you can use it when you are already talk in a past tense, and you want to speak about something that happen “before this past”…

    did i make myself clear?

  2. Manas Barkatki:

    I guess, Conjuntivo is the most difficult tense in portuguese. I have a bit confusion between Apasivente se and Passive voice, for example in the sentences ‘portuguese é falado’ and ‘fala se portuguese’. .But i have no confusion with ‘pretérito mais-que-perfeito’ since it explains ‘past perfect ‘ tense.
    Like in english , we use sentences ‘i had palyed before u came’.

    Please suggset.

    Obrigado,
    Manas
    India, delhi

  3. Kate:

    I speak spanish and there is nothing like that in spanish. As for the past perfect portuguese, like spanish you can say, for example: voçe tinha tido or eu tinha visto. So are you saying that portuguese has two past perfect tenses? What is the difference between eu tinha visto and eu vira…?