Hello, dear students! This is Virginia.
In this lesson, you will learn how to say how long you have been doing something.
I prepared a PDF with exercises for you to practice what you learn in this lesson.
Fill out the form below to download your PDF.
“Por” vs “há”
A question I always ask my students is:
Há quanto tempo você estuda português? (How long have you been studying Portuguese?)
And often I hear some students say:
Eu tenho estudado português por… X anos. (I’ve been studying Portuguese for… X years.)
Oops! In Portuguese, we use a different construction. We say:
Eu estudo português há X anos. (I’ve been studying Portuguese for X years.)
In this case, we use a construction different from English, and we don’t use the preposition “por” (for).
To say how long you have been doing something in Portuguese, you should use the verb in the present tense plus the word “há” or “faz“. For example:
Eu moro nos Estados Unidos há 10 anos. (I’ve been living in the United States for 10 years.)
Or
Eu moro nos Estados Unidos faz 10 anos. (I’ve been living in the United States for 10 years.)
When I say, ” Eu moro nos Estados Unidos há 10 anos,” I mean that I moved to the United States ten years ago and still live here today. I’m talking about an action that started in the past and continues in the present.
When should I use the preposition “por”?
You can use the preposition “por” (for) in other contexts. For example, if I want to talk about an action that is completely in the past, I should use the verb in the past tense and the preposition “por” (for) to say for how long that action happened.
For example:
Eu morei em São Paulo por 10 anos. (I lived in São Paulo for 10 years.)
In this case, I mean that I lived in São Paulo one day, but I don’t live there anymore. It is something that is completely in the past.
Eu tenho + particípio (Pretérito Perfeito Composto)
And could I say, ” eu tenho morado nos Estados Unidos” (I have lived in the United States)? No. It sounds strange.
This verb tense “eu tenho + particípio” (I have + participle) is called the “pretérito perfeito composto”. The way we use this verb tense in Portuguese is different from English and Spanish.
Usually, we use this verb tense to talk about what you have been doing lately, in the last days, in the last weeks. For example:
Eu tenho trabalhado muito ultimamente. (I have been working a lot lately.)
Ela tem estudado bastante nas últimas semanas. (She has been studying a lot in the last weeks.)
A tip: if you can’t put the word “ultimamente” (lately) in the sentence, don’t use the “pretérito perfeito composto”.
Remember to download the PDF with exercises to practice what you learned in this lesson.
See you next time!
Bye, bye!
