Irregular high-frequency verbs: Ter; Ir; Fazer

These three verbs do an enormous amount of work: ter covers having things, your age and obligations; ir covers going places and the everyday future; fazer covers activities and the weather. Two of their most common uses trip up English speakers, because Portuguese doesn't think the way English does: you don't say you are 20 — you have 20 years (tenho vinte anos), and the weather isn't "it is cold" but literally "it makes cold" (faz frio). Learn these patterns as whole phrases and you can talk about possessions, plans, age and weather from your very first conversations.

Three must-know irregular verbs

Ter (to have), ir (to go) and fazer (to do/make) turn up frequently in everyday Portuguese. They have irregular forms, so the forms below are worth memorizing early.

Conjugation (present)

TER — to have

• eu tenho

• você / ele / ela tem (a gente tem too — see Lesson 2)

• nós temos

• vocês / eles / elas têm

IR — to go

Daily life with TER

• "Eu tenho um carro." (I have a car.)

• "Você tem tempo?" (Do you have time?)

• "Nós temos um problema." (We have a problem.)

• "Ela tem dois filhos." (She has two children.)

• "Tem café aqui." (There's coffee here.)

Movement & plans with IR

• "Eu vou para casa." (I'm going home.)

• "Nós vamos ao cinema." (We're going to the movies.)

• "Eles vão viajar amanhã." (They're going to travel tomorrow.)

• "Você vai trabalhar hoje?" (Are you going to work today?)

TER and HAVER for "there is/are"

• Formal / written: Há um problema. (also possible in speech)

• Everyday Brazilian: Tem um problema. (very common in conversation)

• For a neutral "there is a problem here", use tem or há. These sentences can have other meanings, but are not neutral existential equivalents: ⚠ É um problema aqui. / Está um problema aqui.

IR: which preposition?

• Ir a — a destination: Vou ao cinema.

• Ir para — a destination: Vou para casa.

• Ir em — common in colloquial Brazilian speech; formal usage generally prefers a or para: Vou no shopping.

Some descriptions associate a with a shorter stay and para with a longer one. In Brazil this is not a strict rule: context, region and register also affect the choice.

• Existential tem is common in Brazil: in Brazilian Portuguese, ter has largely taken over from haver to mean "there is / there are" — people commonly say Tem gente aqui rather than Há gente aqui. Linguistic research describes a strong preference for existential tem in speech, with haver especially associated with formal and written registers. Há remains correct and can occur in speech too. This is a difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese. (Avelar — existential ter in Brazilian Portuguese)

• The everyday future: Portuguese has a one-word future (farei, viajarei), but in everyday Brazilian speech people often use ir + infinitive instead — vou fazer, vou viajar. The synthetic form is more characteristic of writing and formal discourse, but is not absent from speech; the choice varies with context and genre. That's why ir is a useful everyday future auxiliary. (Research on future forms and discourse genres)