Pretérito perfeito: irregular verbs

The short answer

The verbs you use most — ser, ir, ter, estar, fazer, dizer, vir, ver, dar, poder, querer, saber, trazer and pôr — have their own forms in the pretérito perfeito (Portuguese preterite): Fui ao Rio e fiz muitos amigos — I went to Rio and made lots of friends. You use them exactly like the regular past: for finished events. Learn them early, because a short story about last weekend needs half of them.

How to form it

Most of these verbs have a special past stem (tiv-, estiv-, fiz-, diss-, troux-, pud-, quis-, soub-, pus-). The nós and vocês / eles forms add -emos and -eram to that stem: tivemos, fizeram, souberam. Three patterns to notice:

• In disse, trouxe, quis, soube the eu form and the ele form are the same word. The subject tells them apart: eu disse, ela disse.
• In other verbs one vowel changes: tive / teve, estive / esteve, fiz / fez, pude / pôde, pus / pôs.
• dar and ver are almost regular (dei, deu; vi, viu). vir is the odd one: vim, veio, viemos, vieram.

For "there was" (an event), speech uses teve and writing uses houve: Ontem teve show na praça.

When to use it

The same as regular verbs: finished events, a chain of actions, experiences with já and nunca.

• One event: Ontem eu fiz uma feijoada.
• A chain of events: Ele veio, viu o problema e não disse nada.
• Experience: Você já foi a Salvador? — Have you ever been to Salvador?
• How something went, with ser: A viagem foi ótima.
• Obligation in the past: Tive que trabalhar no sábado.

• Fui ao Rio no ano passado e fiz muitos amigos.I went to Rio last year and made lots of friends.ir, fazer
• Ele veio, viu o problema e não disse nada.He came, saw the problem and didn’t say anything.vir, ver, dizer
• Você já foi a Salvador? — Nunca fui.Have you ever been to Salvador? — I’ve never been.já / nunca + perfeito
• A viagem foi ótima.The trip was great.ser: foi

Contrasts and traps

• fui / foi belong to both ser and ir. Fui ao mercado is "I went to the market"; Fui o primeiro is "I was the first". A place after a, ao, para or pra means "went".
• vim (I came) and vi (I saw), veio (came) and viu (saw) are easy to swap. Say them aloud: the nasal -m of vim is the whole difference.
• pôde (could, past) and pode (can, present) differ only by the circumflex in writing. pôs (you/he put) also keeps its circumflex — ela pôs — while pus (I put) has none.
• fomos (we went, we were) and foram (they went, they were) are different persons.
• The ending -eram is unstressed: fizeram, disseram. Never write -erão; that looks like the future.
• With a gente, use the ele form: a gente foi, a gente fez, a gente trouxe.

If you speak Spanish

Most of these forms are cousins of the Spanish ones, which is exactly why they get mixed: tuve → tive, estuve → estive, hice → fiz, dije → disse, vine → vim, vino → veio, quise → quis, supe → soube, traje → trouxe, puse → pus, dio → deu, vio → viu. And to say how an event went, Portuguese uses ser where Spanish often uses estar: a festa foi ótima, not esteve.