vender — to sell

How to use vender in Brazilian Portuguese

Vender is the Brazilian Portuguese verb for to sell. It is a regular -er 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 vendo — I sell. The pretérito perfeito is the finished past, the English simple past: eu vendi — I sold. The pretérito imperfeito is for habits, background and how things used to be: eu vendia — I used to sell / was selling.

Said the Rio way, vendo sounds like VEHN-doo. The nós form vendemos ends in the carioca “sh”, vehn-DEH-moosh — the most recognisable sound of the Rio accent, where São Paulo says a plain s. Notice vende is VEHN-djee: in Brazil a final -de softens to “jee” and -te to “chee”, something European Portuguese never does.