agradecer — to thank

How to use agradecer in Brazilian Portuguese

Agradecer is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to thank. It is a regular -er verb, so once you know the endings there are no surprises — only the spelling shifts in agradeço to keep the sound of the stem, which is orthography, not irregularity.

Three tenses do almost all the work in conversation. The presente covers the present and the near future: eu agradeço — I thank. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu agradeci — I thanked. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu agradecia — I used to thank / was thanking.

Said the Rio way, agradeço sounds like ah-grah-DEH-soo. The nós form agradecemos ends in the carioca “sh”, ah-grah-deh-SEH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.