TOP 50 most used Verbs by the Portuguese [European Portuguese]

PDF of TOP 500 Verbs – Verbs https://staging-public.portuguesewithcarla.com/500

Practice the R sound in Portuguese: https://youtu.be/B_xaE9jOaL8

Learn to speak Portuguese like a native in a stress free, fun way: https://staging-public.portuguesewithcarla.com
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The 50 most used verbs by native Portuguese people. That’s right, the 50 most useful verbs you should learn.

I will help you conjugate the verbs in the present tense and put it them context. I will also give you some tips on how to use these verbs so as to sound like a native.



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94 Comments

  1. This one lesson made everything I learned so far *click* and it makes sense O: I’m going to keep a cheat sheet nearby to practice, thank you c:

  2. THANK YOU CARLA! this is so helpful <3 i'm moving to Lisbon this month and i'm studying as much as possible

  3. Ola Carla,
    Will you please make all your videos with dual languages just like this one. It’s PERFECT and both languages are compatible with each other.
    This is your BEST video ever.
    Muito obrigado.

  4. Obrigada pelo vĆ­deo!! O verbo ā€œsentirā€ diz ā€œto drinkā€ mas a explicação no fim Ć© šŸ‘Œ

  5. šŸ’® Obrigado pelo vĆ­deo šŸ’® mas porque o pronome “vocĆŖ” diz “informal you”?šŸ¤”

    1. Porque para algumas pessoas Ć© formal e para outras nĆ£o… Ɖ um tópico de grandes debates entre muitos portugueses 😌 se quiser ser formal, Ć© melhor jogar pelo seguro e usar ā€œo senhorā€ ou ā€œ a senhoraā€ e nĆ£o a palavra ā€œvocĆŖā€. Ou simplesmente usar a forma do verbo apropriada, omitindo o pronome ā€œvocĆŖā€ šŸ‘šŸ½

  6. Parece haver um erro com a tradução do verbo “sentir”, acho que nĆ£o Ć© ” to drink”.

  7. Дпасибо за классный контент šŸ™

    1. De nada šŸ™‚ unfortunately we can’t change it once the video has been uploaded.. Oh well, i guess it shows who’s paying attention 😜

  8. I’m guilty of saying ā€œvou irā€

    <- A Portuguese-Canadian trying to talk Portuguese while visiting Portugal

  9. Hi Carla. Thank you for this very helpful video. Can you tell me if there is a difference in the pronounciation between the verb form for voce, ela, ele and voces, elas, eles? For example: “voce volta” and “voces voltam” — does the verb sound the same? Thank you so much!

    1. OlĆ” e obrigada 😊 yes there’s a difference. ā€œamā€ at end of words has the same sound as the ā€œĆ£oā€, although we don’t put the emphasis on it as we do with ā€œĆ£oā€. Another way I could try and explain the difference would be to think of an English person who could perhaps spell those words phonetically this way: Volta = vohl’ter and Voltam = vohl’tung (without making too much of the ā€˜g’).
      Hope this helps!

  10. Great video. I am confused by this, though: you say eu [gOshtu], tu [gOshtash] … but the verb you pronounce as [gUshtar] and nos [gUstamush] and eles [gOstam]. Any rule or rhyme here ? šŸ™‚ ? O changing to U – why, based on what?
    (ditto morar – the same pattern, plus more verbs with it. All of a sudden: voltar. Clearly no U!
    What am I missing here šŸ™‚?)

    1. Thanks Lubomir! The sound of the vowels often changes depending on which syllable of the word is supposed to be emphasised as well as on what letter follows the vowel. So with the infinitive ā€œgostarā€, your strong syllable is ā€œtarā€ ending with an ā€œrā€ which means you put emphasis on that one forcing you to close the vowel from the other syllable (in this case the ā€œoā€ that changes to ā€œuā€ sound).

      With morar and voltar – the letter ā€œlā€ after vowels tends to open them, hence the ā€œoā€ in voltar being more open than the one in ā€œmorarā€.

      I would like to add, though, that it’s unrealistic to expect all words to follow these rules. Just like in English you can pronounce the word ā€œreadā€ like ā€˜reed’ or ā€˜red’, in Portuguese you’ll have words that are spelled the same way and yet the sound of the vowel changes. For example ā€œolhoā€ as in ā€˜eye’ and ā€œolhoā€ as in ā€˜I look’ – the first ā€œoā€ in the second word is more opened that the first ā€œoā€ in the first one.
      Anyway, if you haven’t done so, click on the link to watch a video that may help you further with your question:
      https://youtu.be/1ijqsv-1g3k

    2. @Portuguese With Carla – thanks for the explanation. My take in simple terms – this is a very complex topic and all these nuances point to one thing: one gotta live in Portugal to simply learn these subtleties (ouvir, ouvir, ouvir!) rather than acquire the right pronunciation by a careful study … unlike e.g. Spanish or Italian where I found it feasible. Regional sotaques make such a task even harder (compare Porto with Algarve or even Azores).
      (Your example using morar and voltar is pointing to very subtle differences in openness of “l” – whoa. The example using read and red – disagree with you, that’s a slightly different scenario šŸ™‚ …)

    3. @Portuguese With Carla I watched carefully the recommended video – another very good summary of the rules for pronunciation: you communicated really clear rules. However – not addressing the minutiae around “more open pronunciation owing to the ‘l’ letter” you shared above (morar vs. voltar). Again (and more generally) I have to maintain that after (longer) listening to various people from different parts of Portugal I still do NOT have a clear and unanimous understanding of what the correct (or prevailingly acceptable) pronunciation ought to be … perhaps it is just my problem, though.

  11. Ola Carla, muito obrigado pela licao! E muito dificil mas claro šŸ‘šŸ˜€ E sentir nao e beber 😁

  12. Sorry, we’ve made a mistake while editing the video: sentir = to feel, it does not mean ā€œto drinkā€ which in Portuguese is ā€œbeberā€ šŸ‘šŸ½

  13. I’m not sure, but I think you (Carla) say in this video: ā€œEles sentem-se mais cansados *do* que o habitual.ā€œ ? In the subtitles the ā€œdoā€œĀ is missing. Or maybe I hear something which I shouldn’t hear šŸ˜…

    1. Sim, ā€œDo queā€ = than. And if it’s not included in the subtitles, then you picked it up correctly, well done šŸ˜‰ however, in informal and familiar speaking contexts the ā€œdoā€ is often missed by the natives.

    2. @Portuguese With Carla Thanks for replying! I appreciate that šŸ™‚ Okay, got it, thanks for the thorough explanation ☺

  14. Carla, all good, but for those of us with old eyes, it is very difficult to read the faint font used for the translation up top and the sentence at the end. Thanks for considering.

    1. Thank you and sorry – we can’t change this video now, but we’ll make sure to do better with the font for future ones. It’s tricky sometimes as Marlon is colour blind and often he sees a clear contrast when I don’t, and vice versa! šŸ˜…

    2. @Portuguese With Carla Thank you for considering it for future videos. And please keep them coming. You two are doing a fantastic job!

  15. Thank you, Carla. I’m visiting Portugal next year (2023) and I already speak Spanish so I have a bit of a head start.šŸ‘šŸ¼

    1. OlĆ”, Consume šŸ‘‹šŸ½ it’s great to see you working on your Portuguese already! They’ll appreciate your efforts very much 🄰 Knowing Spanish surely helps you understand certain concepts of the Portuguese language and of course many of the words are either the same or similar, so that’s great for your understanding. I wish you all the best with your Portuguese learning journey and hope you have an amazing time in Portugal šŸ¤—

  16. Although I did study some brazilian portugese on duo linguo this format is better. Great teaching !

    1. Boa pergunta 😊 the northern accents tend to pronounce the ā€œuā€ more so than the rest of the country. I personally do not pronounce the ā€œuā€ so much, but more like you’ve described šŸ‘šŸ½

  17. Have you noticed you say drink for sentir?. does it really mean “drink”? (at 14.44 minutes of the video).

    1. I have, thank you Otto. I’ve pinned a comment explaining it was a mistake on our part – you should see it at the top of the comments section. Thanks again though šŸ˜‰

    1. OlĆ”, Peter 😊 you can adjust the YouTube setting to slow the speed down. If you’re on you’re phone or tablet, you should see 3 little dots on the top right of the video – click on it and then click on playback speed – there you have a couple of options.
      On desktop or laptop a different icon is on the bottom right to adjust quality and speed as well šŸ‘šŸ½

    1. olĆ”! You can adjust the speed on the settings. If you’re on you’re phone or tablet, you should see 3 little dots on the top right of the video – click on it and then click on playback speed – there you can slow it down.
      On desktop or laptop a different icon is on the bottom right to adjust quality and speed as well šŸ‘šŸ½

  18. OlĆ” carla
    I am Vivek from haryana my Portuguese is very weak please tell me what i am do. Am very sad for this .šŸ˜•

    1. OlĆ” Vivek šŸ‘‹šŸ½ I’m sorry you’re struggling with your Portuguese! Watch this short video about a 30 day free course we put together. Don’t worry about understanding everything, just make sure to get that regular exposure to the language on a daily basis and by the end of it you will have progressed and you’ll feel more confident about it all. Exposure, practice and consistency are key šŸ‘šŸ½

    1. Vai-se tornando mais fĆ”cil Ć  medida que se acostuma ao som do portuguĆŖs e se expƵe Ć  lĆ­ngua regularmente. Just keep going šŸ˜‰

  19. We have other verbs too without these 50 verbs.. my question is: are those always remain same with All subjects?

    1. No Portuguese verb remains the same for all the personal pronouns (eu, tu, nós, etc). Most of them are regular and will follow the pattern of the ones you saw on the video. šŸ˜‰

  20. Ever since I read that children (ages 2-4) who grow up bilingual watch a person’s mouth while that person speaks nearly twice as much as non-bilingual children I have looked for videos to learn a language that allow me to watch the speaker’s mouth while they speak. Instead of only a voice-over animation you do a split-screen to let viewers see you pronounce the words. I have found that many times more helpful than other formats. Thank you for doing this.

    1. Watching the mouth is definitely helpful! But it doesn’t help you when on the phone, so also good to train the hearing alone by listening to audio Portuguese material šŸ‘šŸ½

  21. I dont understand why acho (eu form of achar) is pronounced like a u at the end instead of an o. and achas is pronounced like ach uh s instead of an a sound,

    1. Bcz that’s how European Portuguese sounds like. The O is sounded like a close U while the S sounds like a Sh sound

    2. An ā€œoā€ at the end of a word or when is not part of the stressed syllable is pronounced like a short ā€œuā€. What h this video on it: https://youtu.be/WxjDC6yt_3c

      And an ā€œaā€ at the end of words (without a diacritic or accent on top) or when part of a syllable that isn’t the strong one in the word is generally pronounced like a closed ā€œaā€ which in English could be explained as the sound ā€œuhā€ as you well noticed šŸ‘šŸ½

  22. I have a stigma about this language it’s about preference for English speakers or Spanish in North America😊 if someone speaks a dialect different it’s like scorned on I’ve got to get over this stigma embrace it😊

  23. It’s so refreshing to see the Portuguese back I think it’s a win-win situation for the country😊

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