Dar constructions: dá para, dar certo, dar um jeito

• dá para + infinitive = impersonal possibility, with no subject at all — Dá para ver? (Can you see?)

• Não dá is the two-word answer for it can't be done, no way, I can't — the gentlest refusal in the language.

• dar certo / dar errado = to work out / to go wrong — Deu certo! (It worked!)

• dar um jeito = to find a way around a problem — A gente dá um jeito. (We'll figure something out.)

• dar + vontade / fome / sono / medo = a state comes over you — Deu vontade de comer pizza. (I felt like eating pizza.)

• Also everyday: dar uma olhada (take a look), dar de cara com (bump into), dar conta de (handle).

• None of it is slang. This is standard Brazilian, from a courtroom to the beach — only the written form dá para changes in careful writing.

Dá para and não dá run through ordinary Brazilian conversation the way can and can't run through English, and you have already met them in example sentences all over this app without being told what they were. Learn the family and two things happen. You stop hearing dar as “to give” and getting lost — a sentence like Deu vontade de sair stops being a puzzle. And you gain the polite Brazilian way of declining, agreeing to try, and reassuring someone that things will work out.

1. Dá para — the impersonal "can"

Put dar in the third person singular, add para and an infinitive, and you get a sentence with no subject at all. It does not say who can do it; it says that conditions allow it.

• Dá para ver o mar daqui. (You can see the sea from here. / The sea is visible from here.)

• Dá para fazer isso hoje? (Can this be done today?)

• Dá para você me ajudar um minuto? (Could you help me for a minute?)

Because nothing agrees with anything, you only ever change the tense of dar:

Examples in Context

Common Pitfalls

• Giving dá para a personal subject. The construction has no subject: not Eu dou para ir, but Dá para eu ir (I can go / it's possible for me to go), or simply Eu posso ir. (I can go.)

• Using it for personal ability. Dá para ver means conditions allow it — the fog lifted, the seat is good. For your own capacity, use conseguir: Eu consigo ver daqui. (I can see from here.)

• Sending dar certo to fix machines. A plan works out, a device works: not O celular não deu certo, but O celular não funciona. (The phone doesn't work.) Meanwhile O plano não deu certo (The plan didn't work out) is exactly right.

• Making yourself the subject of the state expressions. The feeling gives, you receive: not Eu dou vontade de comer, but Me deu vontade de comer. (I felt like eating.)

• Translating the idioms word by word. Dar de cara com (to bump into) has nothing to do with faces, and dar em nada (to come to nothing) is not about giving. Take each expression whole, the way you took dar um jeito (to find a way).

• Losing the accent on dá. Dá is the verb; da is de + a. The accent is the whole difference: Dá para a Ana? (Can it be done for Ana?) versus o carro da Ana (Ana's car).

• Typing dá pra in a work e-mail. The spoken shape is perfect in a message to a friend and out of place in professional writing — there, write the full dá para (it's possible to), or better still é possível (it is possible).