Hacking Portuguese Participles

portuguese participles

Many Portuguese learners get tripped-up with the past tense. But there are some hacks that can get you speaking quickly. One of them is learning to use Portuguese participles. The past participle is just a verb conjugation that describes something that is over and done: written, said, cooked, closed etc.

Learning the Portuguese participles is easy.

Once you already know the basic form of a past participle, you can put together sentences like this:

A conta está paga. ➜ The bill is paid.

A loja está aberta. ➜ The store is open.

O trabalho está feito. ➜ The work is done.

Sua camisa está bagunçada. ➜ Your shirt is messed-up.

Está reservada. ➜ It's reserved.

Ela está casada. ➜ She's married.

Estamos perdidos. ➜ We're lost.

Está trancada. ➜ It's locked.

Estou falido. ➜ I'm broke.

Ele está desempregado. ➜ He's unemployed.

» From our online Portuguese course.

Grammar: past participles of verbs

A past participle is just a verb conjugation that describes something that is over and done: written, said, cooked, closed etc.

A porta está aberta. (The door is opened.)

O projeto é completado. (The project is completed.)

Ela está cansada. (She's tired.)

Ele foi morto. (He was killed.)

*The endings must take the gender of the subject:
a porta está aberta
o escritório está aberto