Describing your daily routine in Portuguese

Level A2

Describing your daily routine in Portuguese

Compare two morning routines and explain your own. Acordo/acorda describes waking up; me preparo/se prepara says who gets themselves ready. Use antes de or depois de to order actions, and todos os dias for a daily habit. The small pronoun belongs to this meaning of preparation; a habit does not automatically need se.

Start with people and times

Recall eu (I), você (you, one person) and ela (she). Trabalho means I work; trabalha goes with você or ela. Nós (we) and vocês (you, more than one) name groups, but the new forms here concern eu and você/ela. Às sete horas means at seven o’clock; às oito horas, at eight. Horas here names clock time. Comer means to eat; trabalhar, to work.

The words for a morning

Acordar means to wake up: sleep ends, but you may still be in bed. It does not mean getting out of bed. Preparar-se means to get yourself ready for an activity. Here me points back to eu, and se to você or ela. The English card me is an object form; Portuguese me also has this reflexive use, where English may use myself or no pronoun in get ready. Se here is not the word for if.

Antes de means before an action; depois de means after it. Todos os dias means every day: todos (every/all), os (the, masculine plural), dias (days). Learn the complete time phrase; Portuguese uses a plural noun here.

Leo and Ana compare mornings

Leo is speaker A; Ana is B. Read their six lines as one exchange: Leo wakes at seven every day and gets ready before working. Ana wakes at eight and gets ready after eating. Leo then checks her preparation time; she confirms eight o’clock. Listen and follow the changes in time, person and order.

The person getting ready

Eu acordo becomes ela acorda; você also takes acorda. Eu me preparo becomes ela se prepara or você se prepara. In these examples me/se points back to the person preparing: that person gets themselves ready. In preparo comida (I prepare food), comida means food and the preparation is directed at food instead. That meaning is different.

A repeated action does not itself call for me/se: eu acordo and eu trabalho are ordinary ways to describe habits. These are the forms needed here, not a rule for every Portuguese verb. The pronoun comes before the verb in these everyday Brazilian sentences. Você se prepara às oito horas? keeps statement order; the voice and question mark make it a question.

eu / você / ela → acordo / acorda; me preparo / se prepara

Before or after an action

Before working: eu me preparo antes de trabalhar. Getting ready happens first, working later. After eating: eu me preparo depois de comer. Eating happens first, getting ready later. In these examples the same person does both actions. After antes de and depois de, use the named action in its infinitive: trabalhar or comer. Unlike English before working/after eating, these Portuguese models do not use an -ing form. Keep de in both expressions.

me preparo / se prepara antes de / depois de trabalhar / comer

Tell someone about Ana, then about yourself

Without copying the dialogue, report two connected facts about Ana: she wakes at eight every day; she gets ready after eating. Use ela, acorda and se prepara. Check the two answer models below. Then change the time and action order to describe your own real morning in two sentences. If you get ready before working, use the earlier before-working model. All the words needed are on this page.

Keep the useful contrast

Eu acordo / ela acorda: waking up. Eu me preparo / ela se prepara / você se prepara: getting oneself ready. Antes de + action puts preparation first in these examples; depois de + action puts it later. Todos os dias makes the daily repetition explicit. Say your own two sentences once more, checking who acts and which action happens first.

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