Giving directions in Brazilian Portuguese
Help someone reach a grocery store, then adapt the route to a house. Use three instructions in order: siga to continue, vire to turn, and entre to go inside. You will hear each model and change the direction and destination yourself.
Places and order
Primeiro means first in a sequence, and depois means then, the next step: they also organize instructions, not just stories about yesterday. Mercado is a grocery shop here, and casa is a house. Recall vou ao mercado (I am going to the grocery store) and está no mercado (it is in the grocery store): going to a destination and being inside are different. No combines em + o, and na combines em + a; o mercado is masculine, a casa feminine.
Three actions and three directions
Seguir means to follow a route or continue along it here; virar means to change your direction of travel, and entrar means to go inside. Em frente means straight ahead, à direita right, and à esquerda left, from the traveller’s point of view. Listen to these words before the whole route; these directions refer to physical sides, not whether an answer is correct.
A route to the grocery store
Imagine a street leading straight to one junction, with a grocery store just after the right turn; the traveller then stands outside its entrance. Listen to the three instructions as one message: Primeiro, siga em frente (first, go straight ahead), Depois, vire à direita (then turn right), Entre no mercado (go into the grocery store). Siga, vire and entre tell the listener what to do, without a subject word such as você. They are useful instruction forms of seguir, virar and entrar; learn these three models without learning a whole verb table. In à direita and à esquerda, keep à with its written accent; unlike English right/left, these expressions contain that linking word.
Primeiro, siga em frente.
Depois, vire à direita.
Entre no mercado.
Change the direction and the place
Siga em frente keeps the current direction; Vire à esquerda changes it to the left. Entre na casa means go inside the house: na is em + a, just as no is em + o in Entre no mercado. Here entrar takes em with the place; do not copy the English wording go into word for word. Point ahead, left and toward an entrance as you say the three lines, then choose right instead of left and say Vire à direita.
Siga em frente.
Vire à esquerda.
Entre na casa.
Recognize everyday spoken directions
In everyday Brazilian speech, you may hear Vira à direita (turn right) and Segue em frente (go straight ahead). In this route context they are instructions, not reports that someone turns or continues. Usage varies by region and speaker: vire and siga also occur in conversation, so this is not a rule that speech always uses vira and segue. Recognize the two spoken models here; for your own three-step message, keep siga, vire and entre.
- informal
Vira à direita.
- informal
Segue em frente.
Your turn: guide someone to a house
New route: go straight to the only junction, turn left, and enter the house immediately after that turn. Give someone the three instructions in Portuguese before reading the answers below, keeping primeiro for step one and depois for step two. The words you need are em frente, à esquerda and na casa; reuse siga, vire and entre. Then listen to the model and check the order, the left turn and entry into the house. Finally change only the turn to right and the destination to the grocery store, and give the whole message again.
Primeiro, siga em frente.
Depois, vire à esquerda.
Entre na casa.
Keep three useful instructions
Siga em frente continues the route, Vire à esquerda changes direction, and Entre na casa moves from outside to inside. Add primeiro and depois to make the sequence clear, and change only the direction or place when the route changes. The table is a written recap; use the recordings above to check how the instructions sound.
| Action | Instruction |
|---|---|
| seguir | Siga em frente. |
| virar | Vire à esquerda. |
| entrar | Entre na casa. |