A2 (Elementary)Lesson 2: Simple Past (Pretérito Perfeito)
The verbs you reach for most in the past are, annoyingly, the irregular ones — ser, ir, ter, fazer, ver, dizer and friends. There's no tidy set of endings to apply; each has its own past forms (fui, tive, fiz, vi, disse) worth memorizing, because they turn up in almost every sentence about what happened.
ser/ir → fui, foi, fomos, foram (same forms!)
ter → tive, teve, tivemos, tiveram
fazer → fiz, fez, fizemos, fizeram
ver → vi, viu, vimos, viram
dizer → disse, disse, dissemos, disseram
Other essentials: vim (vir), estive (estar), pude (poder), quis (querer)
These verbs show up in nearly every past-tense conversation
Mostly memorization — but the -ive family (tive/estive) shares a pattern
irregular stem + special endings (varying by verb)
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These verbs are very common when talking about the past — think of describing yesterday with fui (I went), tive (I had), or fiz (I did). These irregulars are central to many everyday stories: Fui ao cinema (I went to the movies), Tive um problema (I had a problem), Vi sua mensagem (I saw your message). Nail them and you'll follow most everyday past-tense talk — and finally answer "O que você fez no fim de semana?" like a local instead of freezing up.
| Pronoun | Conjugation | Ser Example | Ir Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eu | fui | Fui professor | Fui ao cinema |
| Você/Ele/Ela | foi | Foi difícil | Foi para casa |
| Nós | fomos | Fomos amigos | Fomos à praia |
| Vocês/Eles/Elas | foram | Foram felizes | Foram embora |
Context determines the meaning:
"Fui ao supermercado ontem" (I went to the supermarket yesterday)
"Tive uma reunião importante" (I had an important meeting)
"Fiz todo o trabalho sozinho" (I did all the work alone)
"Vi a Maria no shopping" (I saw Maria at the mall)
"Ele disse que volta amanhã" (He said he's coming back tomorrow)
"Foi um fim de semana ótimo" (It was a great weekend)
"Tivemos um churrasco em casa" (We had a barbecue at home)
"Fizeram uma festa surpresa" (They threw a surprise party)
"Vimos o jogo juntos" (We watched the game together)
Because the forms are identical, some sentences are genuinely two-way:
"Como foi?" = How was it? OR How did it go?
"Foi bem" = It went well / He or she did well (ir, rather than "It was good" with ser)
"Foi ontem" = It was yesterday OR He/She went yesterday
A single accent marks the tense:
Pôde (could — past) with the circumflex
Pode (can — present) without it
It's one of the few accent distinctions the spelling reform kept.
Ever wonder why ser and ir share the exact same past tense (fui, foi, fomos, foram)? The connection comes from spoken Latin: ire ("to go") had its own perfect forms, ii/ivi, but these were replaced by the perfect forms of esse ("to be"), including fui. That's why, to this day, fui can mean both "I was" and "I went" — only context tells you which.
Sources: Fui (do verbo ser) e fui (do verbo ir) — Ciberdúvidas
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