Essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese

Essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese

Hello and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips 57 (in English) about essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese

On today’s podcast, we are going to speak about essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese. Pronominal verbs are those that are conjugated with the aid of a pronoun.

How’s that? I’ll explain it. For instance:

• Eu me arrependo de ter ficado aqui (I regret I stayed here)

In this case, we are using the verb “arrepender” (to regret) accompanied by the pronoun “me”. Listen to the sentence again: Eu me arrependo de ter ficado aqui. You couldn’t say something as “eu arrependo de ter ficado”. It would be grammatically wrong.

In this case, in Portuguese, we necessarily need to use what we call “partícula ‘se’”. In other words, we have to use the verb “arrepender” alongside of a pronoun.

Click on the link to visit our previous episode about phatic function in Portuguese

Today we are going to study verbos pronominais essenciais (the essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese). I mean, we are going to study the verbs that always come accompanied by a pronoun. Next episode, we are going to speak about “verbos pronominais acidentais” – the accidental pronominal verbs. They are different. They are verbs that sometimes we need to use them with pronouns and sometimes we don’t! But let’s focus on today’s subject.

If you’re a Spanish speaker or a Spanish student, you won’t find it difficult to understand. In Portuguese, we have few verbs with these peculiarities. So, I will pick the three main essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese up and we’ll conjugate them, all right? Could you give me a hand with it?

Arrepender-se

Forgive me for redundancy, but this concept of the pronoun should be clear to you: have you noticed that we use pronouns in all situations?

We don’t say “ela arrepende”, but “ela se arrepende”. The first situation doesn’t exist in Portuguese, when using this verb.

Another thing that should be clear to you is that this concept works with all verbal tenses. For instance, in the future tense, you should say “ela vai se arrepender” or “ela se arrependerá”; in the past tense we say “ela se arrependeu” and so forth.

Queixar-se verb – Essential pronominal verbs in Portuguese

Let’s try to conjugate the verb “queixar-se” (to complain) in the future tense, in order to clear it up. Repeat with me:

Suicidar-se

I know this is a very bad verb to learn. Sorry for that. However, this is an iconic verb to understand pronominal verbs in Portuguese. See, you don’t “suicide another person”. You can’t do that! That’s why you need to use pronouns beside the verb.

Let’s try to conjugate this verb in the past tense, but don’t repeat it too much. You just need to understand the idea  here.

That’s enough for today!

Become a Premium Member to download our full transcripts

57 - Portuguese Basic Tips - Transcript

1 file(s) 306.29 KB

Click on the link and learn more pronominal verbs in portuguese (Portuguese only)

I hope you like it.

See you next time.

Thanks!

Marcos Sales

Podcast (portuguesebasictips): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Email | RSS