ler — to read

How to use ler in Brazilian Portuguese

Ler is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to read. It is an irregular verb: 3 of its forms in the three tenses below break the regular -er pattern (leio, lê, leem), and those are the ones to learn by heart.

Three tenses do almost all the work in conversation. The presente covers the present and the near future: eu leio — I read. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu li — I read. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu lia — I used to read / was reading. Because ler 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 leia — that I read — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu lesse — if I read.

Said the Rio way, leio sounds like LEH-yoo. The nós form lemos ends in the carioca “sh”, LEH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.