Reported speech in Portuguese – Past simple and past perfect
Reported speech in Portuguese – Past simple and past perfect
Hello there and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips 91, in which we’ll speak about Reported speech in Portuguese – Past simple and past perfect
On today’s episode, we are going to keep talking about reported speech in Portuguese. I chose this topic, because knowing about it will help you to manage the use of verb tenses in Portuguese. Today we are going to speak about reported speech by using the past simple and past perfect tenses.
This episode is a continuation of the previous episode, so if you haven’t listened to the episode ninety, please do it.
Practicing verb tenses in Portuguese by using reported speech – Present Tense
Listen to the sentence in Portuguese in the past simple tense:
- Eu perdi o trem / I missed the train.
Note that the sentence is already using a past tense!
If we change it to the reported speech, we kinda need to do it twice!
How’s that? Listen:
- Ele disse (first past) que tinha perdido (second past) o trem / He said he had missed the train.
We got two actions in the past! The second one is a compound way of doing it.
In Portuguese, in those cases, we use the verbs “ter” or “haver”. For instance: Ele disse que tinha perdido o trem or ele disse que havia perdido o trem. You can use both! If we are talking about daily conversations, people use “ter” instead of “haver”.
Now let’s practice, just like we did in the previous episode. I’ll say the normal sentence, using the direct speech and you’ll use the reported speech, using ter or haver.
- Eu me atrasei hoje / I was late today
Your turn:
– Ele disse que tinha se atrasado hoje / He said he was late today
– Eu bebi demais / I drank a lot
Your turn, reported speech:
– Ele disse que tinha bebido demais / He said he had drunk a lot
Note that we always have verbs in “partícipio” tense here. We already have episodes in which we’ve spoken about it.
- Eu acordei cedo / I woke up early
Your turn. Try to use the verb “haver” this time:
- Ele disse que havia acordado cedo / He said he had woken up early
– Eu gostei do carro novo / I liked the new car
Your turn, reported speech:
– Ele disse que tinha gostado do carro novo / He said he liked the new car
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That’s it.
See you soon!
Marcos Sales
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