precisar — to need

How to use precisar in Brazilian Portuguese

Precisar is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to need. 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 preciso — I need. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu precisei — I needed. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu precisava — I used to need. Because precisar 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 precise — that I need — and the imperfeito do subjuntivo, the tense of hypotheticals: eu precisasse — if I needed.

Said the Rio way, preciso sounds like preh-SEE-zoo. The nós form precisamos ends in the carioca “sh”, preh-see-ZAH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s.