aprender — to learn

How to use aprender in Brazilian Portuguese

Aprender is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to learn. It is a regular -er 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 aprendo — I learn. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu aprendi — I learned. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu aprendia — I used to learn / was learning. Because aprender 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 aprenda — that I learn — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu aprendesse — if I learned.

Said the Rio way, aprendo sounds like ah-PREN-doo. The nós form aprendemos ends in the carioca “sh”, ah-pren-DEH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s. Notice aprende is ah-PREN-djee: in Brazil a final -de softens to “jee” and -te to “chee”, something European Portuguese never does.