The present tense in Portuguese, as in any other language, is necessary to express ideas of habitual activities, state the present situation, and even to explain what is happening at the time of speech. Sometimes we use the present to talk about future actions, if it is allowed by the context. Below is a chart with the present tenses of all the verb conjugations in Portuguese.

TRACK 69

The Present Tense: Regular Endings

To conjugate a verb, simply drop the infinitive endings (— ar, — er, — ir) and add the endings that are in bold, according to the grammatical person. Do this for all verbs, as long as they follow the regular pattern. The above table shows clearly that there is some consistency when it comes to the present tense, if you do not count the irregular first person singular forms from the last chapter — ouço (I hear), peço (I ask for), saio (I leave), dou (I give). For one thing, the você (you) and ele/ela (he/she) forms are the same. Also, vocês (you (pl.)) and eles/elas (they) forms are also written exactly the same. If you look across the table, you will see that all third person singular forms end in a vowel, and that all of the third person plural forms also end in the consonant — m. In addition, all the nós (we) forms end in — mos, which makes it easier to identify the subject by looking at the end of the verb.