Conjugating regular -ar verbs
Portuguese verbs come in three groups by their infinitive ending: -ar, -er, -ir. The -ar group is by far the largest. Today you'll learn one set of endings (-o, -as, -a, -amos, -am) and unlock dozens of verbs in one go: falar, morar, trabalhar, estudar, gostar, comprar, escutar.
How to conjugate
Take the infinitive and drop the -ar to get the stem. From falar (to speak), the stem is fal-. Then bolt on the personal ending. eu falo = I speak. tu falas = you speak. ele fala / ela fala / você fala = he/she speaks, you speak. nós falamos = we speak. eles falam / elas falam / vocês falam = they/you all speak. Memorize the rhythm: -o, -as, -a, -amos, -am.
Several -ar verbs at once
morar (to live, to reside) → moro, moras, mora, moramos, moram. trabalhar (to work) → trabalho, trabalhas, trabalha, trabalhamos, trabalham. estudar (to study) → estudo, estudas, estuda, estudamos, estudam. comprar (to buy) → compro, compras, compra, compramos, compram. The pattern never breaks for regular -ar verbs.
PT vs BR — the tu/você split, in action
European Portuguese uses tu with the -as ending: tu falas, tu moras, tu trabalhas. Brazilian Portuguese mostly drops tu and uses você with the third-person form: você fala, você mora, você trabalha — same verb form a Portuguese speaker would use for ele/ela. So for 'you (informal) speak' a Portuguese person says falas and a Brazilian says fala. Both are correct in their register; the Speekeet default is the Portuguese tu form.
Gostar — the verb that needs 'de'
gostar = to like, but it always takes the preposition de before what you like. Gosto de café = I like coffee. Gostas de música? = Do you like music? Ela gosta da Ana = She likes Ana (note: de + a = da, the contraction from lesson 4). Não gostamos de cães grandes = We don't like big dogs. The structure feels a bit like English 'to be fond of' — there's always something between gostar and the object.
The form does triple duty
Falo português can mean 'I speak Portuguese' (ability), 'I'm speaking Portuguese' (right now), or 'I regularly speak Portuguese' (habit). Portuguese, like Spanish, leaves it to context. There's a separate continuous form (estou a falar in Portugal, estou falando in Brazil) when you need to stress the right-now reading — but that's a later lesson.
