Informal ways of using the verb dar (to give) in Brazilian Portuguese

Hello and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips in which we called about informal ways of using the verb dar (to give) in Brazilian Portuguese

On today’s podcast we’re going to speak about Brazilian informal ways of using the verb dar (to give) in Portuguese. I mean, we often use this verb trying to give it another meaning.  Other than simply say “eu vou te dar algo” (I’ll give you something), we could use it to say something like “Vai dar para fazer isso” (It will be possible to do that), for instance.

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Some might say that it is a bad Portuguese, that it is a wrong way of using the language. They are right! This is not formal. You wouldn’t find those expressions in a Portuguese formal course. But I need to say that you’ll find different meanings of the verb “dar” in any part of the country, anytime.

So you can choose whether or not to use it, but you definitely need to know its meaning, if you want to be fluent in Brazilian Portuguese.

First let me explain to you that the verb dar literally means “to give”, right?

So, if you want to say something as “I’m going to give it to you”, in a formal Portuguese, you could say “Eu te darei isso” or “ Eu vou te dar isso”.

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Note that in the second example “Eu vou te dar isso”, I have two verbs: vou and dar. In this case, I’m using the verb “ir” (vou) as an auxiliary verb. We often do that in Portuguese when we want to build a sentence in a future tense.  Eu vou dar (I’m going to give it ), Eu vou fazer (I’m going to make it), Eu vou ler (I’m going to read it) and so forth.

Ok, we are speaking about formal sentences in Portuguese so far.  Let’s take the first informal example with the verb “dar”, then.

Dar meaning possibility and kindness

When we want to ask something to someone, we normally use what we call “futuro do pretérito”. For instance:

• Você poderia fazer isso para mim? (Could you do that to me?)

Or

• Você faria isso para mim? (Would you do that to me?)

Those kinds of sentences ending with “ria” (faria, poderia) have a kindness meaning which is implicit on the phrases. I mean, it’s implicit that you are asking for a favor to someone. Note that in the first example, we also used an auxiliary verb to build the sentence.

• Você poderia fazer isso?

In this case, the verb “poder” was used only to help the main verb “fazer”.

Throughout the years, it became common to us using informally the verb “dar” with the same meaning. For instance:

• Daria para você fazer isso para mim? (Could you do that to me?)

Note that this is not a formal way of building the sentence, but it’s pretty common here.

Let’s take other examples:

• Daria para você me emprestar isso? (Could you borrow me that)
• Daria para você terminar isso ainda hoje? (Could you finish that today?)

Using present perfect and future with the verb (Dar) – Informal ways of using the verb dar in Brazilian Portuguese

Ok, by following the same way of thinking, as we did before, we can use the verb “dar” to ask a question in the present tense. The only difference here is that, in this case, the sentence won’t have “kindness meaning” anymore.

Click on the link to learn about irregular verbs in Portuguese future tense

For instance:

• Dá para você terminar o trabalho hoje? (Will you finish the job today?)

In Portuguese, the verb it’s been used in the present tense, in this case – but with a future tense meaning.

Another example:

• Dá para você esperar um pouco? (Will you wait a little bit?)

Using the auxiliary verbs and  “dar” verb

To finish this, you could answer someone using the verb “dar” with the aid of an auxiliary verb in the future.

For instance, if someone asks you “Dá para você esperar um pouco” (Will you wait a little bit?), you can answer:

• Ok, acho que vai dar para esperar! (Meaning: Ok, I think I can wait)

Another example:

• Dá para você me ligar hoje à noite? (Will you call me at night?)
• Ok, vai dar para te ligar, sim! (Yes, I can call you)

Remember! All the examples I’ve shown you here are informal phrases in Brazilian Portuguese. Still, I think you need to be aware of their existence, so that you can understand this language more and more.

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That’s enough for today!

I hope you like it.

See you next time!

Thanks

Marcos Sales

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