MUDAR de Ideia : Change your mind.

By James Hall / / (3) Intermediate Portuguese
mudar-de-ideia

Mudar de ideia

Brazilians are a flexible bunch. They love to set dates, appointments, meetings and decisions, often without much hesitation. But it's all in a constant state of flux. You will discover that it's partly just their nature to agree to things. It's actually a very charming trait. But, it also causes a lot of energy to be spent on UNDOING what was agreed. To reduce the pain and suffering that this can bring, I jump through hoops trying to motivate Brazilians into committing. If we've set a date do do something - ANYTHING, I almost always call the day before to confirm. If it's a business appointment, I always call to confirm that I've confirmed (!). This is especially important to do if you're in Rio de Janeiro. They are the most dedicated mind-changers I've ever seen. If you don't call ahead to confirm a date, it's not unusual for people to just assume that it's not on.

MUDAR is usually in the past tense!

Eu mudei de ideia. » I changed my mind.

*Notice that MUDAR is in the past tense. It's just like in English how we say, "I changed my mind."

Ela mudou de ideia. » She changed her mind.
(Nós) Mudamos de ideia. » We changed our minds.

People usually just say, "Mudei de ideia" -- without the "eu". Some great examples on Reverso Context here.

You can use MUDAR in any tense though - it's just most common that you're talking about having already had a change of mind. In the present and future it looks like this:

Ela vai mudar de ideia. » She's going to change her mind.

Attention advanced learners!

If she had changed her mind... » Se ela tivesse mudado de ideia poderíamos ter ido.

Mudar de Ideia!

Other ways to use MUDAR + de...

This coupling of MUDAR with de takes on super-power status pretty quick. Here are the most popular combinations:

Mudar de assunto

This is next in popularity. Vamos mudar de assunto.; Você sempre muda de assunto!

Mudar Mudar disso, mudar daquilo...

You can be as creative as you like with this combo. It's tough to really go wrong. For example you can say things like:
Mudar de estilo » Ela mudou de estilo. » She changed her style.
Mudar de casa » Nós vamos mudar de casa depois do verão. » We're going to move (our home) after the summer.
Mudar de plano » Por que ele mudou de plano? » Why did he change plans?

*You might be wondering if the verb TROCAR could be used in these examples and the answer is, sim!
Mudar de roupa = Trocar de roupa.
The only difference her is that MUDAR usually implies a real change whereas TROCAR expresses, to trade. When you TROCAR de uma ideia, you are trading ideas --> brainstorming.