Portuguese Reflexive Verbs Explained: A 4-Part Guide For Confused Learners

This article spotlights a grammar point that's usually a weak spot for Portuguese learners: how to use Portuguese reflexive verbs.

While these verbs can seem tricky at first, you'll soon see they're not so bad. Plus, by getting your head around them, your Portuguese fluency will get a big boost!

Here's a quick look at the four key points you're going to discover in this post. For each, you are going to get plenty of examples. Here they are:

#1 A Short Introduction To Reflexive Verbs In Portuguese

First, you should know what parts a sentence is made of and what the function of each part is.

A sentence can have a subject, a verb, and an object. The subject comes before the verb, and is the agent in the sentence.

The object comes after the verb, and is the target in the sentence. The verb shows the action of the sentence.

Check these examples in the table:

You can imagine a question just after each verb, as I demonstrate below. These imaginary questions show that the object is the target of the verb. 

• I understand (who?) you.
• The city has (what?) problems.
• She washes (what?) the dishes.
• He lives in (where?) Brazil.

The subject does an action, and the object receives this action. These are the most common functions of the parts of a sentence. And it's the first point for you to understand the logic of Portuguese reflexive verbs.

Are you with me so far? Ok, let's keep going.

#2 What Is A Reflexive Verb? How Does It Work?

What comes to your mind when you think of the word “reflexive”? It's related to reflection, so you can imagine a mirror, right? A mirror reflects an image back to itself.

So, if you put the subject of the sentence in front of a mirror, it will see itself. This is just a metaphor before I dive into a deeper explanation. This is exactly how the process works.

As you see, when it comes to Portuguese reflexive verbs, the relation between the agent and the target in a sentence changes.

As the subject is the doer and the action is reflexive, the target of the sentence is the own subject. So, in these cases, the subject and the object of the verb are the same.

Check out the examples below:

#3 What Is The Role Of Portuguese Reflexive Pronouns?

As you have just noticed in the third column of the previous table, there are special words (myself, a mim mesmo, herself, a si mesma) working as the object of the verb in these reflexive cases.

Their job is to refer back to the subject, like in a mirror. Look at the table below to discover some reflexive pronouns in Portuguese and the corresponding pronouns in English. They all match with their subjects.

In Portuguese, there are two ways of using the reflexive pattern. You can say: Ela culpou a si mesma or Ela se culpou.  In English, the only reflexive way is saying: she blamed herself.

You must use “herself” to indicate that it refers to the subject and not to another person. If we say, “she blamed her”, the meaning is totally different. It would mean that she blamed another woman.

So, let’s see all these reflexive particles of the Portuguese language. This pattern is much more common in real conversations.

When you conjugate the pronouns in real sentences, it looks like this:

• Eu me culpei.
• Você se culpou.
• Ele se culpou.
• Ela se culpou.
• Nós nos culpamos.
• Vocês se culparam.
• Eles se culparam.
• Elas se culparam.

There is a much less common reflexive particle, used mainly in the south of Brazil: the particle te, that refers to the subject tu. It is a second person, equivalent to você (you). Here we have an example of this usage:

• Tu te culpastes. (You blamed yourself.)

In English, reflexive verbs are only used when the subject does something to itself/himself/herself. But in Portuguese, these verbs can have other meaning patterns. Let's take a look at them next.

#4 Meaning Patterns Of Reflexive Verbs In Portuguese

A meaning pattern is a kind of standardized purpose we use the language for. Unlike in English, where there's one meaning pattern for all reflexive verbs, in Portuguese there are at least four different purposes for the usage of Portuguese reflexive verbs.

1. Reflexive for real
2. Reciprocal reflexive
3. Changes of state
4. Self-Reflexive

Reflexive For Real

Reflexive verbs for real mean the subject and the object of the verb are really the same, just like I explained using the mirror metaphor. This pattern corresponds to the reflexive usage in English, when we use the pronouns: si mesmo (oneself), mim mesmo (myself) and so on. 

There are some situations in which we don’t necessarily have to use the pronouns mim mesmo, si mesmo and so on, just the particles: me, se, nos, according to the subjects. It is much more common in daily conversations in Portuguese.

Example 1: A criança se escondeu atrás da porta. (The kid hid behind the door.)

We don’t say: “hid himself/herself” not even escondeu a si mesma. These patterns are totally unusual in English and Portuguese, respectively.

In English, the context, and the absence of a pronoun after the verb shows perfectly that the verb is functioning as a reflexive one. In Portuguese, we’d better use the reflexive particle se.

Example 2: A garota se veste para festa. (The girl dresses for the party.)

In Portuguese, if we didn’t use the particle se, there would be a question pending, like this: A senhora veste para a festa. (Who does she dress?). In English, there is no need for a pronoun, but you can also use the structure “get dressed” to express the same idea.

By the way, there are some reflexive situations in English where the verb “get” plus an adjective is kind of mandatory, as you will see in the next example.

Example 3: Eles se perderam na cidade. They got lost in the city.

Here, if we say, “they lost in the city”, there will be a pending question like “what did they lose?”. So, by using the verb “get”, the misunderstanding is clarified.

Example 4: Ele se barbeia de manhã. He shaves in the morning.

In Portuguese, all these verbs related to selfcare are reflexive. Look at this table for more examples.

Reciprocal Reflexive

The word “reciprocal” supposes that there are two people involved at least, but it can be also a group of people doing things reciprocally.

In these cases, we use “each other” or “one another”. These are um ao outro or uns aos outros in Portuguese.

Example 1: Maria e Pedro se gostam. (Maria and Pedro like each other / one another.)

Here, if you said, “Maria and Pedro like themselves” (Maria e Pedro gostam de si mesmos), the meaning would totally change. It would mean that Maria likes herself and Pedro himself too.

In Portuguese, eles se gostam is slightly ambiguous, but in daily conversation, people would understand it means a reciprocal feeling for each other.

Example 2: Alguns alunos dessa turma se conheceram ano passado (conheceram uns aos outros). (Some students in this class met each other last year.)

This example is just to show that it is possible to use the reciprocal pattern when it comes to a group of people.

Changes Of State

Some verbs in Portuguese use the reflexive pattern to indicate a change of state, either an emotional or physical change, or a change of position. You might be wondering why the verb is reflexive in these cases. 

Well, something happens to the subject, although it's not necessarily caused by the subject. Maybe it's a spontaneous change, or we don’t know its origin.

When it comes to changes of state, there are cases where the verb is reflexive in Portuguese and intransitive in English. Let’s take a look at some examples:

Example 1: A criança se desenvolveu bem. (The child developed well.)

The development happened, it caused a change, but we don’t know who or what caused that. And it doesn’t matter. The focus is on the growth of the kid.

Example 2: A notícia se espalhou rápido. (The news spread quickly.)

The same situation here: who spread the news? It doesn’t really matter again because the focus is on the fact that the news is now known by many people.

Example 3: O sol se põe à tardinha. (The sun sets in the evening.)

This is a natural event, and the sun goes down by itself as part of the solar system and Earth’s cycles between day and night. It doesn't matter why, that’s just the way it is.

In other situations, the verb is reflexive in Portuguese and has a passive form in English. Here are some examples:

Example 1: Ela se supreendeu com o resultado. (He was surprised by the result.)

Example 2: Papai se estressa facilmente. (Dad gets stressed easily.)

In this last sentence, you can see an example of informal speech where the use of “get” is much more common. We can also change the first example and say: “He got surprised”, and this way it's more colloquial.

There are also some verbs that refer to body positions. They are reflexive in Portuguese and intransitive in English, such as:

Examples of sentences:

1. Por favor, sente-se. (Please, sit down.)
2. Ela levantou-se e saiu da sala. (She stood up and left the room.)
3. Ele deitou-se para descansar. (He lay down to rest.)
4. Os cristãos se ajoelharam para rezar. (Christians knelt for praying.)

Self-Reflexive

This pattern includes verbs that refer to abstract actions that we can’t do for other people, just to ourselves. In Portuguese, these verbs are always reflexive in these cases. For example:  

• Arrepender-se (to regret)
  • Eu me arrependi do que fiz. (I regretted what I did.)

• Recusar-se (to refuse)
  • Ela se recusou a ir à festa. (She refused to go to the party.)

• Gabar-se (to boast)
  • Ele se gabou do seu novo carro. (He boasted about his new car.)

• Maravilhar-se (to be amazed)
  • Você maravilhou-se com a paisagem. (You were amazed by the landscape.)

• Esquecer-se (to forget)
  • Nós nos esquecemos de pagar a conta. (We forgot to pay the bill.)

• Divorciar-se (to get divorced)
  • Ele se divorciou. (He got divorced.)

• Casar-se (to get married)
  • Ela se casou. (She got married.)

• Conscientizar-se (to be aware)
  • Nós nos conscientizamos de nossa responsabilidade. (We were aware of our responsibilities.)

Portuguese Reflexive Verbs FAQ

Getting Used To Portuguese Reflexive Verbs

As you have just discovered, reflexive verbs and their pronouns are much more important for daily conversations in Portuguese than in English.

And now you're aware of how they function and their main meaning patterns. Keep learning!

The best way to remember and start using Portuguese reflexive verbs is to follow the rules of StoryLearning and read and listen to stories in Portuguese. As you read, notice the reflexive verbs and they'll soon start to make sense.

And if you still need a bit more help to master reflexive verbs or any aspect of Portuguese grammar, my course, Portuguese Uncovered will teach you them through story, not rules. Try it free for seven days.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.