In this Portuguese lesson, you will learn how to say to stop doing something in Portuguese. You will learn how to say things such as, “You need to stop smoking” or “It has stopped raining”.
The inspiration for this blog post came during a Portuguese class. My client and I were talking about how important it is to set personal and professional goals and to determine the steps we need to take to achieve our goals. My client enjoys talking about personal growth. To inspire our conversations, we read great articles and watch videos on the topic – in Portuguese, of course! During this particular conversation, I asked my client to make a list of things that she wanted to start doing and things that she felt that she needed to stop doing, which inspired this Portuguese lesson.
To learn how to say to start doing something in Portuguese and to avoid common mistakes with the verb Começar, visit this other lesson.
Start by leaving the –ing alone
In English, the structure is: Stop doing something. In Portuguese, we use a different structure with a different verb tense to communicate the same thing. Therefore, a literal translation will not work here.
This is a source of common mistakes by speakers of Portuguese as a foreign language. So much so that it has inspired other Portuguese lessons on my blog. I highly recommend that you check them out to avoid common mistakes:
- Learn how to talk about ongoing actions, such as in “I am writing this Portuguese lesson”. In other words, learn the -ING conjugation in Portuguese and learn when to use it.
- Learn how to say “Speaking Portuguese is fun” or “Exercising is a healthy habit”. No, we do not use the -ING form of the verb to say this in Portuguese.
- Learn how to say to start doing something in Portuguese. This is another case in which we do not use the -ING form.
How to Say To Stop Doing Something in Portuguese
The structure in Portuguese is as follows:
- Verb Parar conjugated + preposition de + infinitive of main verb
Here are examples:
1) João precisa parar de fumar. = João needs to stop smoking.
- Learn how to use the verb Precisar = to need
2) Quero parar de trabalhar até tarde. = I want to stop working until late.
3) Parou de chover. = It has stopped raining.
Notice that you use the present perfect (has stopped) in English and we simply use the simple past (parou) in Portuguese . This causes a lot of trouble to both English and Spanish speakers, so keep it in mind 😉
4) Não pare de sonhar. = Don’t stop dreaming.
5) Bia, você tem que parar de reclamar da vida! = Bia, you have to stop complaining about life!
6) Ana parou de seguir João nas redes sociais. = Ana stopped following João on social media.
The Verb To Stop: Parar
Parar = to stop
It is a regular verb. The simple present and simple past conjugations are below.
The underlined syllable is the stronger syllable of the word. Watch the video lesson to learn how to pronounce it correctly. Stressing the wrong syllable makes a big difference. It can even sound like you are saying the future tense instead of the past, which would make your sentence wrong.
| Presente do Indicativo | Pretérito Perfeito do Indicativo |
| Eu paro | Eu parei |
| Você/Ele/Ela para | Você/Ele/Ela parou |
| A gente para | A gente parou |
| Nós paramos | Nós paramos |
| Vocês/Eles/Elas param | Vocês/Eles/Elas pararam |
How is your Portuguese advancing? If you’d like to develop the ability to have real conversations in Portuguese speak with ease, a trained instructor is the most effective way to get there. We teach one-on-one Brazilian Portuguese lessons through video meetings. Book a Trial Lesson with us to see how we can make a difference in your Portuguese.
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