estudar — to study

How to use estudar in Brazilian Portuguese

Estudar is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to study. 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 estudo — I study. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu estudei — I studied. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu estudava — I used to study / was studying. Because estudar 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 estude — that I study — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu estudasse — if I studied.

Said the Rio way, estudo sounds like esh-TOO-doo. The nós form estudamos ends in the carioca “sh”, esh-too-DAH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.