Talking about future plans in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A2

Talking about future plans in Brazilian Portuguese

In everyday Brazilian Portuguese, use vou or vai followed by an infinitive to talk about intentions and arrangements: this works much like English “going to.” Portuguese often leaves out the subject when it is clear, so vou already tells you the speaker means “I.” A gente means “we” but takes a singular verb: a gente vai or a gente planeja. After planejar, use the infinitive directly, without a separate word for English “to.”

Words for planning and changing plans

Intentions with vou or vai + infinitive

sujeito, se expresso vou/vai ação no infinitivo expressão de tempo futuro.

Saying what you plan to do with planejar

sujeito planeja/planejo ação no infinitivo expressão de tempo, se houver.

Arrangements: where you are going and what you will do

sujeito, se expresso vou/vai destino ou ação no infinitivo expressão de tempo futuro.

Saying your plans have changed

Use mudar de planos for “change plans”: “Mudei de planos. Vou estudar no sábado.” Unlike English “my plans,” this expression needs no possessive; mudei means “I changed,” while a gente mudou means “we changed.” Give the new arrangement with vou or vai plus an infinitive, even where English uses “I'm studying” or “we're working.”

Before a destination, vai means “goes/is going”; before an infinitive, it helps express a future action. In the questions here, você is everyday, informal address, while o senhor is respectful address to a man; a senhora is the corresponding form for a woman, and all three take vai. Portuguese questions need no equivalent of English “do”: keep the statement's word order and use question intonation.

An informal conversation about study plans

Respectful questions about work plans

Practise this lesson

Next lessons