Using the Portuguese Past Tenses Properly | Portuguese With Eli

Using the Portuguese Past Tenses Properly | Portuguese With Eli

The Portuguese past tenses usually give English speakers a lot of headaches.

After all, “I *played* video games a lot when I was a child” and “I *had* a hamburger for lunch yesterday” use the same tense in English.

But in Portuguese, we have two main options for that. The Portuguese imperfect past tense and the Portuguese perfect past tense, or preterite. Let's call the latter tense “simple past.” It's less confusing.

The simple past in Portuguese is used when you're talking about actions that have a specific beginning and ending time. Even when time’s not clearly stated you can use the simple tense.

But the imperfect past tense is used in a wider range of contexts.

When you're talking about actions in the past, you need the imperfect past tense in Portuguese.

And when you're talking about habits in the past – not much different from repeated actions – you also need the imperfect past tense. This situation reminds me of English sentences like, “I would wake up at 5 when I was a child…”

Also, *I used to* do something requires the Imperfect.

If you're talking about simultaneous actions in the past you can also use the imperfect past tense. But in this case you can mix the perfect and the perfect past tenses.

And lastly, when it's implied or explicit that you are comparing the past and the present, your best bet is using the perfect past tense.

You'll see more examples in the video above.

And if you have any questions come on leave a comment. I always make sure questions get an answer.

And for the supporting article, please take a look at:

https://portuguesewitheli.com/brazilian-portuguese-grammar/when-to-use-the-portuguese-past-tenses/
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Using the Portuguese Past Tenses Properly | Portuguese With Eli
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NAiXUXRg1A

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