LESSON 10

Dialogue:

Na feira...

– Ei, quanto custa a melancia?

– Dez reais o quilo.

– Está certo, vou levar. Audio

Phonetic Transcription:

na FÊYra…	Note
– êy, KWÃtu KUSta a mélãSIa?	Remember that the first syllable of the verb “estar” is usually not pronounced.
– déys reAYzu Kilu.
– tá SÉHtu, vôw léVAH.

Literal Translation:

At the market...

– Hey, how much costs the watermelon?

– Ten reais the kilo.

– It’s right, I’m going to take.

Proper Translation:

At the market…

– Hey, how much does the watermelon cost?

– Ten reais a kilo.

– Ok, I’ll take it.

People also say “Quanto é?” (How much is it?). In fact, you may hear “Quanto é?” more often than “Quanto custa?”.

Presente do Indicativo Part I – Regular Verbs

The “presente do indicativo” corresponds to the simple present. The indicativo is the verbal mood used for “real” things. There are two other verbal moods in Portuguese: the subjunctive, used for hypotethical situations and usually followed by a conditional sentence; and the imperative, used for commands. You don’t need to know this explanation about the verbal moods, it was just to show how the word “indicativo” appeared.

Conjugating a verb

A Portuguese verb may have one of these three endings: ar (most of them: cantar, estar, trabalhar); er (ser, beber, vender) or ir (ir, conseguir, dormir). Each of these verbs follow a different pattern for showing the tense, mood and person. We call these patterns conjugação (conjugation). Thus, the verbs ending in ar belong to the primeira conjugação (first conjugation), those ending in er belong to the Segunda conjugação (second conjugation) and those ending in ir, to the terceira conjugação (third conjugation). There are some verbs ending in or, like “pôr” (to put). They are all irregular and are conjugated like the verb “pôr” and are included in the second conjugation (the verb pôr was formerly called poer, therefore it used to end in er).

The usefulness of knowing these conjugations is that each regular verb of each conjugation follows a pattern; once you know the pattern for a regular verb ending in ar, you’ll be able to con jugate any other regular verb that also ends in ar. The irregular verbs don’t follow these common patterns. You have to memorize them, but they also have their own “logic”, and so this will be easy to do it.

You may already know the presente do indicativo form of two irregular verbs: estar (first conjugation) and ser (second conjugation). In this lesson, we’re studying the regular verbs. Some of the most common irregular verbs will be taught in the next lesson. Below it’s the table for the regular verbs. The examples used will be cantar (to sing), beber (to drink) and partir (to leave, to go away), each one belonging to a different conjugation:

	Primeira Conjugação	Segunda Conjugação	Terceira Conjugação
Eu	canto	bebo	parto
Tu	cantas	bebes	partes
Ele	canta	bebe	parte
Nós	cantamos	bebemos	partimos
Vós	cantais	bebeis	partis
Eles	cantam	bebem	partem

We use the presente do indicativo in the same situations we would use the simple present. Let’s see some examples:

· O céu é azul. (u séw é aZUW). The sky is blue.

· O livro está em cima da mesa. (u Livru tá ~eiC~Ima da Mêza). The book is on the table.

· Ela trabalha em um supermercado. (Éla traBAlha ~ey ~u supéhméhKAdu). She works in a supermarket.

· Eu sempre acordo tarde aos domingos. (êw S~Epri aCÓHdu TAHdji aws duM~Igus).

Like the English simple present, it can also be used to express the future, as long as an adverb for the future is used.

· Eu viajo amanhã. (êw viAju amã~yÃ). I travel tomorrow.

Don’t hesitate in using the presente do indicativo everytime you think you would use the simple present; you may be correct in almost all cases.

Exercises

Fill in the blanks with the verb in parenthesis in the proper form (pass the mouse to check the answers):

1. Ela ________ muito. (viajar) (viaja; Éla viAja M~Uitu; She travels a lot.)

2. Como você ________ bem! (cantar) (canta; Kõmu vôSÊ KÃta b~ei; “how well you sing!”, meaning “you sing very well!”)