Past habits and background in Brazilian Portuguese
You are telling a colleague about your life before and today. The key is how you present the past: a habit or background, or a completed event. You will use four past forms without learning a whole tense chart.
Start with familiar forms
Sou estudante means “I am a student”; estou aqui means “I am here”: ser identifies, while estar here locates a person. Trabalho em casa means “I work at home”, and ontem trabalhei em casa means “yesterday I worked at home”, presented as a completed event. Eu means “I”; Portuguese can leave it out when the person is clear.
Sou estudante.
Estou aqui.
Trabalho em casa.
Ontem trabalhei em casa.
Words for a former life
Antes here means “previously”, contrasting a former situation with now; quando means “when” linking a time clause, not asking a question. Estudante is “student”, casa “home”, aqui “here”, hoje “today” and ontem “yesterday”; em casa is “at home”, while em before a city means “in”. Morar means “live”, trabalhar “work”, ser identifies and estar locates a person in these examples; Recife and São Paulo are Brazilian cities.
One person, two moments
Imagine someone speaking at their current workplace in São Paulo. Listen to the four lines as one short account: earlier they lived in Recife and worked at home while they were a student; today they live in São Paulo and work here. Quando eu era estudante means “when I was a student” and sets the life stage for trabalhava, “I used to work”. Hoje contrasts the present with that earlier period; the text does not date the move.
Antes, eu morava em Recife.
Quando eu era estudante, trabalhava em casa.
Hoje, moro em São Paulo.
Trabalho aqui.
Describe the old arrangement
For these two verbs with eu, moro becomes morava and trabalho becomes trabalhava when you describe the past arrangement or habit. Antes, eu trabalhava aqui means “I used to work here”, without presenting its beginning and end. Quando eu era estudante, morava em Recife places the residence within the student period. You can keep eu before the second verb, but it is not necessary in these examples.
Antes, eu morava / trabalhava em Recife / em casa / aqui.
Antes, eu morava em Recife.
Antes, eu trabalhava aqui.
Quando eu era estudante, morava em Recife.
Past identity and location
Sou estudante becomes era estudante, “I was a student”; estou aqui becomes estava aqui, “I was here”. In quando eu era estudante, era identifies the person at that stage of life; in ontem, eu estava em casa, estava locates the person in the scene. Both are imperfeito forms, like morava and trabalhava; English “was” does not choose ser or estar for you. These examples teach identity and physical location, without a general permanent-versus-temporary rule.
Quando eu era estudante, trabalhava em casa.
Ontem, eu estava em casa.
Antes, eu estava aqui.
Background or completed whole
Trabalhava describes a past work arrangement; trabalhei presents work as a completed event, as in ontem trabalhei em casa. Estava gives the location as background: “I was at home”, without making a completed visit the point. The difference is not long versus short: morei aqui dois anos means “I lived here for two years”, with the whole period presented as complete (dois anos = two years). A long period can use the perfeito, and ontem can appear with either tense; choose according to the message.
Antes, eu trabalhava aqui.
Ontem trabalhei em casa.
Morei aqui dois anos.
Transfer the account to your life
Before playing the models below, make two linked sentences: say where you lived when you were a student, then where you live today, using quando eu era estudante, morava em… / hoje, moro em…. Use Recife and São Paulo, or replace them with cities relevant to you. Then contrast working at home as a student with your current workplace: quando eu era estudante, trabalhava em casa / trabalho aqui. Check that your listener can tell the old arrangement from the current one; the lines below are possible models, not facts you must copy.
Quando eu era estudante, morava em Recife.
Hoje, moro em São Paulo.
Quando eu era estudante, trabalhava em casa.
Trabalho aqui.
Choose the view of the past
Use morava and trabalhava for a past arrangement or habit, era for the identity and estava for the physical location in these examples. Antes points to the earlier situation; quando eu era… anchors it to a life stage. These imperfeito forms leave the endpoint outside the focus; completed-event forms such as trabalhei or morei present the event or period as a whole, however long it lasted.
Quando eu era estudante, trabalhava em casa.
Ontem, eu estava em casa.
Antes, eu morava em Recife.