Portuguese Basics: Lesson 3

The Portuguese word for to want is querer.

Remember that if you want something, you usually query if you can have it.

The word for he is ele.

Most of the time in Portuguese, if you want to make to do into he does, you usually just remove the last r.

The way this would work for querer would be that it he does would be ele quere. However, there is a slight exception with querer: because it is such a common word, the last e disappears as well and it becomes ele quer.

How would you say:

?He wants to have time.|Ele quer ter tempo.

Imagine you are talking to a man. Remember, that if you want to say you want you are simply saying the mister wants so it is the same form as for ele. How would you say:

?You want to have time.|O senhor quer ter tempo.

The word for money is dinheiro.

If you can’t remember the currency dinar to help you recall this word, then simply imagine having money for dinner.

If you want to ask a question, you simply say it as a statement and just rise the intonation in the end.

Talk to a woman. Ask:

?You don’t want to have money?|A senhora não quer ter dinheiro?

The Portuguese word for but is mas.

Talk to a woman again. Have in mind that you don’t need to repeat a senhora twice in the sentence – once is good enough. Write:

?You want to have time but you don’t want to have money.|A senhora quer ter tempo mas não quer ter dinheiro.

Let’s get back to the he form – ele. Say:

?He wants money.|Ele quer dinheiro.

If you want to say he wants it, you replace dinheiro with the word for it which is the same as the word for the.

In this sentence, however, quer becomes what it should have been in the first place - quere because it easier to say quere o than quer o. This does not really make a difference in speech. How would you say it:

?He wants it.|Ele quere o.

Talk to a man:

?He doesn’t want money but you want it.|Ele não quer dinheiro mas o senhor quere o.

So, the word it is the same as the word for the. In these cases, it replaced dinheiro and tempo which both end in o and are masculine because of that and that’s why the word for it was also masculine - o.

The word for a house is casa.

Casa ends with a thus it is feminine. How would you say:

?He wants to have the house.|Ele quer ter a casa.

Actually, we are using the word for ele all the time. It would be nice to know the word for she as well. This word has three letters just like the word ele and it is feminine therefore it loooves a. What do you think the word for she is?

?She|Ela

So, talk about her a bit now:

?She wants to have the house.|Ela quer ter a casa.

Simplify:

?She wants the house.|Ele quer a casa.

Refer to a casa. Say:

?She wants it.|Ela quere a.

Talk to a man. Say:

?He doesn’t want the house but you want it.|Ele não quer a casa mas o senhor quere a.

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