ligar — to call (phone), to turn on

How to use ligar in Brazilian Portuguese

Ligar is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to call (phone), to turn on. It is a regular -ar verb, so once you know the endings there are no surprises — only the spelling shifts in liguei to keep the sound of the stem, which is orthography, not irregularity.

Three tenses do almost all the work in conversation. The presente covers the present and the near future: eu ligo — I call (phone). The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu liguei — I called / turned on (phone). The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu ligava — I used to call / turn on / was calling (phone). Because ligar 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 ligue — that I call (phone) — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu ligasse — if I called / turned on (phone).

Said the Rio way, ligo sounds like LEE-goo. The nós form ligamos ends in the carioca “sh”, lee-GAH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.