Agreement norms in formal writing (concordância)

What it is

Spoken Brazilian Portuguese relaxes some agreement rules, above all when the subject comes after the verb or when the verb has no subject at all. Formal writing (reports, journalism, official letters, the ENEM essay, the Celpe-Bras) follows the norma-padrão. At C1 you should write these structures correctly without thinking, and recognise the spoken alternatives when you hear them.

Impersonal haver and fazer

When haver means "there is / there are" or haver and fazer express elapsed time, the verb has no subject and stays in the third person singular, whatever follows it. Existir, on the other hand, is an ordinary verb and agrees.

The auxiliary of a verb phrase "catches" the impersonality: Deve haver, Vai fazer dez anos, Pode haver atrasos.

Subjects after the verb

A postposed subject is still the subject: the verb agrees with it. This is where speech and the norm part ways most often.

• Faltam três dias para o prazo. (speech often: Falta três dias)
• Chegaram as encomendas. / Sobraram duas vagas. / Restam dúvidas.
• Bastam dois cliques. / Ocorreram falhas no sistema.

A good test: move the subject to the front. Três dias faltam — then the plural is obvious.

Collectives, partitives and percentages

• Collective noun alone: singular. A equipe chegou. O público aplaudiu.
• Partitive (a maioria de, grande parte de, metade de + plural): both are accepted. A maioria dos alunos votou (agreeing with maioria) or votaram (with alunos).
• Percentages: the verb usually agrees with the noun after the percentage: 30% dos eleitores votaram, 1% da população votou. Without a noun it agrees with the number: Apenas 1% votou, 40% votaram.
• Mais de um takes the singular: Mais de um candidato desistiu.
• Um dos que prefers the plural: Ela é uma das que mais trabalham.

Nominal agreement traps

More rules for formal texts

• Compound subject before the verb → plural: O diretor e a secretária chegaram. After the verb, agreement with the nearest noun is also accepted: Chegou o diretor e a secretária or Chegaram o diretor e a secretária.
• ser with time agrees with the number: É uma hora, São duas horas, É meio-dia e meia.
• se: the passive se agrees (Alugam-se salas), the indeterminate se doesn't (Precisa-se de técnicos). The topic on the many uses of se explains the test.

In context

A formal email can contain four of these rules in three lines: Prezada Marta, seguem anexos os relatórios. Houve atrasos na entrega porque faltavam duas assinaturas. Faz dez dias que aguardamos a resposta do setor jurídico. Every verb and adjective here is in the form an editor, an exam or a client expects.

Contrasts and traps

• Haviam in the sense of "there were" is the classic error; haviam is fine as an auxiliary: Eles haviam saído.
• Tem for "there is" (Tem muita gente aqui) is normal speech; in formal writing, use há.
• Postposed subjects in long sentences are easy to miss: Foram apresentadas, durante a reunião, três propostas.
• Menas doesn't exist in the norm; menos never changes.

If you speak Spanish

You already know impersonal haber, and the same slip exists in Spanish: habían muchas personas becomes haviam muitas pessoas in Portuguese. Keep it singular in both. Hace dos años is faz dois anos (singular, like Spanish). Faltan tres días agrees in Spanish as well, so trust your instinct there. One difference: Spanish hay is invariable and very frequent, while Brazilian speech replaces há with tem (tem muita gente), which you should avoid in formal writing.