esperar — to wait, to hope

How to use esperar in Brazilian Portuguese

Esperar is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to wait, to hope. 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 espero — I wait / hope. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu esperei — I waited / hoped. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu esperava — I used to wait / hope. Because esperar 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 espere — that I wait / hope — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu esperasse — if I waited / hoped.

Said the Rio way, espero sounds like esh-PEH-roo. The nós form esperamos ends in the carioca “sh”, esh-peh-RAH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.