Explore European Portuguese verbal periphrases – perífrases verbais and learn how structures like estar a, começar a, passar a and deixar de work in European Portuguese.
Olá pessoal! In this lesson, I bring you yet another sentence structure that doesn’t translate into English neatly. If you want to describe starting to do something as a new situation, habit or way of doing things in European Portuguese, you’ll often come across: passar a + infinitive For example: Passei a estudar português todos … Read more
Often, languages don’t translate into each other neatly. The sentence structure I bring in this lesson is one of them. If you want to say “to no longer do something” in European Portuguese, you’ll often come across this structure: deixar de + infinitive For example: Deixei de fumar.I stopped smoking. Ela deixou de trabalhar aqui.She … Read more
The verb voltar means “to return” or “to go back”, but the preposition that follows it can change what we mean. Two very common structures are: voltar a + infinitivevoltar a/para + place At first, these can be confusing because voltar a can have two different meanings. Let’s look at how they work. Voltar a … Read more
If you want to say that someone started doing something in Portuguese, you probably already know the structure: começar a + infinitivo Comecei a estudar português.I started studying Portuguese. But there is another very useful construction that can sometimes be translated similarly: passar a + infinitivo Passei a estudar português. At first, these two structures … Read more
These two Portuguese structures, Estar a fazer vs andar a fazer, don’t exactly mean the same thing. If you’re learning European Portuguese, you’ve probably seen both of these: They both look like “to be doing” in English. But they are not interchangeable. And if you use them randomly, you’ll sound slightly… off. Let’s fix that … Read more