Lição Nº1 The series that teaches you Portuguese the way I teach my students.

Someone left a comment online last week about feeling completely lost on where to even begin with Portuguese. I see this all the time. So we're doing something about it.

A proper guide, in order, the same way I work with my private students. You get a preview of exactly what that looks like.

Today: how to say what you're doing right now.

Before vocabulary lists, before grammar tables, before any of that — you need one formula. One pattern that unlocks an entire way of speaking.

Here it is:

Estar + a + verb

That's it. This is the European Portuguese present continuous — the equivalent of the English -ing form. If you speak Hindi, you already know this feeling: it works like root verb + raha/rahi + hai/hoon.

Same logic. New sounds.

First, conjugate Estar:

Some verbs to start with:

Comer · Dormir · Beber · Limpar · Passear · Almoçar

(to eat · to sleep · to drink · to clean · to stroll · to have lunch)

Now put it together:

• Eu estou a comer — I am eating
• Tu estás a dormir — You are sleeping
• Ele/ela está a beber — He/she is drinking
• Nós estamos a limpar — We are cleaning
• Vocês estão a passear — You all are strolling
• Eles/elas estão a almoçar — They are having lunch

The formula never changes. Only the verb at the end moves.

TPC — trabalho para casa

1. Think about your daily routine. What do you actually do? Make a list of the verbs you'd need to describe your day.
2. Build five sentences using the formula: estar (conjugated) + a + verb.

If this is the kind of Portuguese you want to learn — real and structured — Casa Portuguesa is where we go deeper every week.

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Com café e caos, Catarina.