Today, we’ll talk about auxiliary verbs! Let’s start by taking a look at the following sentences:
- «I eating dinner»
- «She going home»
- «They come tomorrow»
Something sounds off, right? That’s because they’re missing their “helper verbs”. In standard English, we say:
- «I am eating dinner»
- «She is going home»
- «They will come tomorrow»
These auxiliary verbs (am, is, will) make it more complete. They often give us important details about timing, like whether an action is starting, ending, ongoing, or completed. Or they may convey other nuances, like possibility or necessity.
And Portuguese works exactly the same way! You need both parts together to tell the complete story: the verbo auxiliar (auxiliary verb) and the main verb. Here are a few common auxiliary verbs in Portuguese:
Estou a...I am... (doing) Vou...I will..., I'm going to... Tenho de...I have to... Posso...I can..., I may... Costumo...I usually... Acabei de...I just... Devo...I must... Devia...I should... Continuo a...I still..., I keep...
These are also a great shortcut when learning Portuguese! If you aren’t sure how to conjugate a verb for a certain situation, you can just keep it in the infinitive and pair it with one of these auxiliary verbs. For example:
- To talk about a future action, you can simply use irto go + any verb.
- Want to talk about an action happening right now? Just use estar a + any verb.
If you want to learn more about these helper verbs — check out our full Unit here. You can also listen to this Shorty and see if you can pick up on some of the auxiliary verbs!
Happy learning! 🙂