Existential ter and haver

These sentences help you ask about a toilet, a table, change, bread or a seat on the bus. English “there is / there are” agrees with the following noun; impersonal Portuguese tem and há do not. Têm vinte cadeiras can mean “they have twenty chairs”, with an understood plural subject. Learn tem, há, teve and houve as different singular forms: the form still changes with tense. Context distinguishes existence, availability and possession.

Tem, and the subject that isn't there

You already use tem for “there is”. In the impersonal construction taught here, there is no referential subject. The verb stays in the third person singular and indicates existence or availability.

• Tem uma padaria na esquina. (There's a bakery on the corner.)

• Tem muita gente na fila. (There are a lot of people in the queue.)

• Tem banheiro aqui? (Is there a toilet here?)

Compare the ter you learned first: A Ana tem uma padaria has a subject — Ana — and says she has a bakery, without proving ownership. Merely omitting a subject does not create an existential: Portuguese also allows an understood personal subject. Context and meaning distinguish the uses.

It never goes plural, and that is the whole rule

There is, there are

• "Tem um ponto de ônibus na esquina." (There's a bus stop on the corner.)

• "Tem três farmácias nessa rua." (There are three pharmacies on this street.)

• "Tem alguém na porta." (There's someone at the door.)

• "Não tem lugar no carro." (There's no room in the car.)

More formal forms

• "Há uma reunião marcada para as dez." (There is a meeting set for ten o'clock.)

• "Há muitos brasileiros morando em Portugal." (There are many Brazilians living in Portugal.)

• "Houve dois shows na cidade no sábado." (There were two concerts in town on Saturday.)

• "Existem várias formas de chegar lá." (There are several ways of getting there.)

The possessive ter still agrees, and it always did

Eles têm dois filhos. (They have two children.) has a plural subject and takes têm, with its circumflex. Tem dois filhos na sala. (There are two children in the room.) uses singular tem in the existential reading. A personal subject can also be understood rather than written; omitting a pronoun does not by itself change possession into existence.

Introducing something and locating it

Tem and há often introduce something indefinite: Tem um livro na mesa. (There’s a book on the table.) To locate an identified book, use O livro está na mesa. (The book is on the table.) Definite nouns are not automatically excluded: Tem o livro na mesa can be possible in a suitable context, for example when indicating what is available. Choose according to context and meaning.

The frozen phrases you will hear daily

Several everyday expressions use existential tem: Não tem problema. (No problem.) · Não tem jeito. (There’s nothing to be done.) · Não tem mais. (There’s none left.) These are useful fixed expressions, while retaining sentence structure.

Other past forms

Teve and houve present an occurrence as a completed event. The imperfect forms tinha and havia can describe a past situation or background. That tense is studied at B1; it is not interchangeable with teve or houve in every context.

An existential tinha appears in a famously criticized Brazilian poem. In July 1928 the Revista de Antropofagia printed Carlos Drummond de Andrade's No meio do caminho, built on the refrain no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra — the everyday existential where school grammar wanted havia — and the ridicule followed him for decades, reaching as far as his job in the civil service. Drummond kept every clipping and in 1967 published the entire quarrel as a book, Uma pedra no meio do caminho: biografia de um poema.

Sources: Instituto Moreira Salles — Elvia Bezerra, Migalhas — Gramatigalhas, José Maria da Costa

Existential ter is not modern sloppiness — it is about five hundred years old. Dinah Callou and Juanito Avelar traced ter and haver through written Portuguese from the thirteenth century to the twentieth and found existential ter increasing over time, with its first appearances back in the sixteenth century. What feels like a Brazilian shortcut is a change that has simply been running longer than Brazil has been a country.

Sources: Gragoatá (UFF) — Callou & Avelar, 2000, Domínios de Lingu@gem (UFU) — Vitório, 2013