Taking a Holiday

Learn how to say "to go"

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Lesson Transcript

Oi, meu nome é Paloma. Hi everybody! I’m Paloma.

Welcome to PortuguesePod101.com’s “Português em Três Minutos”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Portuguese.

In the last lesson, we learned how to use Portuguese adjectives easily.

In this lesson we will start a series of lessons dedicated to the most common Portuguese verbs, the ones you will certainly hear all the time!

The first verb in our series will be ir, which means "to go". We will use this word along with many different destinations.

You will see that in Portuguese you have to use an appropriate linking word to connect ir to your destination.

So imagine someone asks you Onde você vai passar suas férias? That means "Where are you going to spend your vacation?" In an informal way.

So if you are going to a beach, for example, you will say in Portuguese Eu vou à praia.

[slowly] Eu vou à praia.

So let’s break down this answer.

First we had-

Eu vou which is "I am going to..."

It is the 1st person form of the verb ir, "to go" in present tense.

After it came à, which is the preposition and article between the verb and your destination, so it’s like "to the" in English.

Finally we had praia which is a noun that means “beach”.

So now, let’s have an explanation of these connecting words between eu vou "I go" and your destination.

If your destination is singular feminine, as is the case with a praia, then you have to use à after Eu vou.

All together it is Eu vou à praia, literally "I’m going to the beach."

But, if you are going to a singular masculine destination, this time you will say Eu vou + ao, as in Eu vou ao Pantanal which means “I am going to Pantanal.” Pantanal is a wetland region in Brazil.

And if you are going to a plural masculine destination, you will also use Eu vou aos, with an "s" at the end of ao. Eu vou aos Lençóis Maranhenses "I’m going to the Lencois Maranhenses."

If it is a plural feminine destination, you should use às. For example, Eu vou às Cataratas do Iguaçu. “I’m going to the Iguazu Falls.”

Now it’s time for Paloma’s Points.

You can also use the preposition para together with the verb ir. For example, Eu vou para Salvador. “I’m going to Salvador.”

The only difference is that the preposition para gives the idea of permanence.

But in spoken Portuguese in Brazil we don’t really differentiate between these prepositions.

So, in this lesson, we learned how to use the verb ir and to use correct link words with it to talk about your destination.

Next time we’ll learn another very useful verb, fazer.

Do you know what this Portuguese verb means? I’ll be waiting for you with the answer in the next Português em Três Minutos.