The personal infinitive in Portuguese: who does what

Level B2

The personal infinitive in Portuguese: who does what

A handover can name the right task and still leave the wrong person responsible. Follow a workshop team, then write a short handover of your own: after para and antes de, identify the doer of that action, using an explicit subject or a personal-infinitive ending where it helps.

Recover the people and the purpose

Eu means I, eles means they, and nós means we, including the speaker; e means and, so Rui e Leo names the two people that eles will refer to here. In Rui e Leo fazem o trabalho, fazem means do and o trabalho means the work or task. Para introduces purpose, while antes de puts one action before another: antes de sair means before leaving. Here enviar means send, fazer means do, fechar means close and sair means go out of a place. O roteiro is the outline or running order for the workshop, a revisão is the review, and a porta is the door; o and a are definite articles.

Read one handover as a connected message

Ana coordinates the workshop remotely, I review its outline, and Rui and Leo carry out the work; nós in the last line includes me, Rui and Leo, but not Ana. Read the three lines as one message and listen to who performs each action. Ana envia o roteiro para eu fazer a revisão means Ana sends the outline so I can do the review, and Eu envio o roteiro para eles fazerem o trabalho means I send it so they can do the work. Envia is sends, envio is I send, and fechamos is we close. In the last line, the same group closes the door and leaves; the ending of sairmos makes that group recoverable.

A different doer after para

In para eu fazer, eu is the subject of fazer, so the review is my responsibility even though Ana sends the outline. This eu does the action: use para eu fazer here, rather than replacing eu with the object form mim. In para eles fazerem, they do the work: fazer gains -em, while para nós fazermos uses -mos for our group. English often uses so that they can do or for them to do; Portuguese gives this infinitive its own subject and can mark person on the verb. Compare fazem, they do in the opening sentence, with fazerem after para: the latter is not a present-tense form, and -em here identifies participants rather than a time. Learn these contrasts, without treating every use of para as requiring a personal ending.

The same group can close and leave

Antes de sairmos means before we leave: sair gains -mos, with no written accent in sairmos. In Nós fechamos a porta antes de sairmos, the people closing and leaving are the same group. Nós fechamos a porta antes de sair is also possible with that meaning, so a shared subject does not ban the personal infinitive or force its use. In Rui e Leo fecham a porta antes de saírem, fecham means they close and saírem refers back to Rui and Leo; this form has an accent on í. These are clear examples of variation, not a complete rule for every infinitive construction.

Assign each action before choosing the form

Before revealing the examples, say three things: Ana sends the outline for you, the speaker, to do the review; in an alternative plan, Ana sends it for Rui and Leo to do the work; you, Rui and Leo close the door before leaving together. Name Rui and Leo before replacing them with eles, and keep the membership of nós clear. Build the purpose clauses with para eu fazer and para eles fazerem, then use antes de sairmos in the last line. Compare your sentences with the models below and listen again. For each line, identify the sender, the doer after para, and the leaving group where there is one.

Transfer it to a library team

Now prepare a library event with a different allocation of roles: Rui coordinates remotely, you review the outline, and Ana and Leo carry out the work. Write a connected three-sentence handover: Rui sends it for you to review; you send it for Ana and Leo to do the work; you, Ana and Leo close the door before leaving. The necessary words and forms are already above: roteiro, revisão, trabalho, envio, envia, fazer, fazerem, fechamos and sairmos. Introduce Ana and Leo before using eles, which can refer to this mixed group, and make clear that nós excludes Rui here. Read your message aloud, then change the last action so only Ana and Leo close the door and leave, using fecham and saírem. Check that changing the people has changed the relevant wording, without changing who sends or reviews the outline.

Keep the action and its doer together

Para eu fazer, para eles fazerem and para nós fazermos distinguish who carries out the intended action. Antes de sairmos and antes de saírem identify the leaving group. First resolve the reference of eu, eles or nós, then choose the form and check the relationship between the actions. With the shared subject in our example, antes de sair is also available; use this lesson's contrasts without turning them into a universal prohibition.

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