Regular –AR verbs

Regular -AR verbs are everywhere in Brazilian Portuguese – from essential daily actions like "falar" (to speak), "trabalhar" (to work), and "morar" (to live) to expressing feelings with "amar" (to love) and "gostar" (to like). Master these patterns and you'll unlock many verbs, since -AR is the largest Portuguese verb group! Whether you're telling someone "Eu falo português" (I speak Portuguese), asking "Você mora aqui?" (Do you live here?), or making plans with "A gente almoça juntos amanhã?" (We'll have lunch together tomorrow?), these conjugations are your foundation for real communication. Plus, once you nail -AR verbs, learning -ER and -IR verbs becomes a breeze since they follow similar patterns.

Understanding the Basics

Portuguese dictionary-form verbs usually end in -AR, -ER or -IR; pôr and its derivatives, such as compor, are exceptions. This form is called the infinitive. For -AR verbs, conjugation is like changing outfits – you take off the -AR "outfit" and dress the verb stem in different endings depending on who's doing the action.

The Conjugation Pattern

Let's use FALAR (to speak) as our model:

1. Find the stem: FALAR - AR = FAL-

2. Add the appropriate ending:

EU → -O

• fal + o = falo (I speak)

Daily Conversations

• "Eu trabalho de casa" (I work from home)

• "Você mora sozinho?" (Do you live alone?)

• "A gente conversa todo dia" (We talk every day)

• "Eles não falam inglês" (They don't speak English)

• "Nós caminhamos muito" (We walk a lot)

WhatsApp / Texting

• "chego em 5 min" (I'll arrive in 5 minutes)

• "vc compra o pão?" (will you buy the bread?)

• "a gente conversa dps" (we'll talk later)

Spelling Notes for the Present Indicative

Regular -AR verbs following the falar model keep their spelling in the present indicative: remove -AR and add the ending. In ficar, chegar and começar, the endings (-o, -as, -a, -amos, -am) begin with a or o, so the stem's final c, ç or g keeps its sound:

• ficar → eu fico, você fica, nós ficamos (no change)

• chegar → eu chego, você chega, nós chegamos (no change)

• começar → eu começo (cedilla stays!), você começa, nós começamos

(Verbs in -CAR, -ÇAR, -GAR do change spelling in other tenses — the preterite "eu" form like cheguei, comecei, fiquei, and the present subjunctive — but you'll meet those later.)

The A Gente Trap

Remember: in standard agreement, "a gente" uses third-person singular:

• ✅ "A gente trabalha" (We work)

• ❌ "A gente trabalhamos"

Modern loanwords usually become -ar verbs

When English words enter Portuguese as verbs, they usually pick up the -ar ending: clicar (to click), deletar (to delete), tuitar (to tweet), escanear (to scan), resetar (to reset). The same pattern appears with nouns that turn into actions, like whatsappear (to WhatsApp). Many follow falar, but -ear verbs have forms such as eu escaneio. Learning -ar gives you a useful pattern for new borrowings, with some variations.

Sources: Wiktionary — tuitar, Wiktionary — deletar, Wiktionary — clicar.

Estar and dar are common -ar exceptions

The -ar class is very uniform, but estar (to be) and dar (to give) have important irregular forms. Verbs in -ear, and some in -iar, also have stem variations in the present. By contrast, the -er and -ir classes include many common irregular verbs, such as ser, ter, fazer, pôr, ir, vir, ver and poder. Learning the regular -ar pattern still covers a large part of the class.