Verbs and the prepositions they demand: gostar de, sonhar com, pensar em

• Many Portuguese verbs carry a fixed preposition. Learn the pair as one item: gostar de, never bare gostar.

• de: gostar, precisar, depender, lembrar, esquecer, cuidar, desistir, reclamar, ter medo, sair.

• com: sonhar, casar, contar, preocupar-se, parecer, concordar.

• em: acreditar, pensar, morar, entrar, chegar — and real Brazil says chegar em casa, whatever the grammar book prefers.

• a / para: assistir a (formal) or plain assistir in speech; ir a / para; dar para = to be possible.

• por: esperar por, procurar por, apaixonar-se por.

• The preposition contracts with a following article — do, na, pelo, ao — and with ele/ela (dele, nela), but stays separate before você: gosto de você.

This is the difference between Portuguese that is understandable and Portuguese that is right. Eu gosto café will be understood, and it will also mark every sentence you say as translated rather than spoken. The prepositions are unpredictable and they are everywhere: you cannot like, need, remember, worry, wait, watch or fall in love without one. Worse, English quietly supplies its own — dream about, think about, marry with nothing at all — and each of those instincts sends you to the wrong word. Learning the verb together with its preposition costs nothing extra and removes an entire category of mistake.

1. The preposition is part of the verb

In English, like takes its object directly: I like coffee. In Portuguese gostar is incomplete on its own — it needs de before whatever you like, every single time: Gosto de café. (I like coffee.)

Many verbs do take their object with nothing in between — Comprei o livro. (I bought the book.) But a large, very frequent set demands a fixed preposition you cannot work out from the meaning: sonhar takes com, pensar takes em, precisar takes de. There is no logic underneath, so store the two words together — not gostar, but gostar de.

2. The de family — the biggest one

Examples in Context

Common Pitfalls

• Don't leave gostar bare. ❌ Eu gosto café → ✅ Eu gosto de café. (I like coffee.) The de is not decoration — without it the sentence simply does not stand up.

• The contraction is not optional. ❌ Gosto de o café → ✅ Gosto do café. (I like the coffee.) Whenever an article follows, the two words fuse.

• English drops prepositions where Portuguese keeps them. ❌ Ela casou o Bruno → ✅ Ela casou com o Bruno. (She married Bruno.) Same trap with ❌ Entrei a sala → ✅ Entrei na sala. (I went into the room.)

• "About" is a false friend twice over. ❌ Sonhei sobre você → ✅ Sonhei com você. (I dreamed about you.) ❌ Penso sobre você → ✅ Penso em você. (I think about you.) Pensar sobre does exist, but it means turning a topic over in your head, not missing a person.

• Com + mim always fuses. ❌ Conte com mim → ✅ Conte comigo. (Count on me.) There is no version of this with the two words apart.

• Before a verb, precisar lets the de go. ❌ Preciso de dormir → ✅ Preciso dormir. (I need to sleep.) Put a noun after it and the de returns: ✅ Preciso de descanso. (I need a rest.)

• Don't over-correct into the formal form. Assisti ao jogo (I watched the match) is the written norm, but everyday speech drops the a — Assisti o jogo — and so does Respondi o e-mail. (I answered the email.) That is register, not error, and insisting on the formal version at a bar sounds stiffer than it does correct.