ajudar — to help

How to use ajudar in Brazilian Portuguese

Ajudar is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to help. It is a regular -ar verb, so once you know the endings there are no surprises.

Three tenses do almost all the work in conversation. The presente covers the present and the near future: eu ajudo — I help. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu ajudei — I helped. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu ajudava — I used to help / was helping. Because ajudar is one of the 58 most-used verbs, the page also has both subjunctives: the presente do subjuntivo, the mood of wishes, doubts and “quero que…” — eu ajude — that I help — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu ajudasse — if I helped.

Said the Rio way, ajudo sounds like ah-ZHOO-doo. The nós form ajudamos ends in the carioca “sh”, ah-zhoo-DAH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.