Time Expressions: há, desde, durante, daqui a

📌 Nota gramatical

In European Portuguese, 'há' (from the verb haver) is used with a time period to mean 'ago' in the past. It can also indicate how long something has been going on when paired with the present tense, similar to 'for' in English. It always appears at the beginning of the time phrase.

📌 Nota gramatical

When 'há' is used with the present tense (e.g., trabalho aqui há um ano), it translates to English 'have been...ing for' or 'for'. When used with the preterite or simple past tense (e.g., cheguei há uma hora), it means 'ago'.

📌 Nota gramatical

'Desde' means 'since' in English. It points to a specific starting moment in the past (a year, a month, a day of the week, or a specific event) from which an action continues into the present. It is typically used with the present tense.

📌 Nota gramatical

'Desde' can also combine with fixed times, hours, or specific calendar markers to indicate when an uninterrupted state or activity commenced.

📌 Nota gramatical

To express a range of time with a definite start and end point, Portuguese pairs 'desde' (from/since) with 'até' (until/to). This is used for schedules, temporary states, and events.

📌 Nota gramatical

'Durante' means 'during' in English. It is used with a noun phrase to indicate that an action took place throughout a certain period or event without interruption. It answers the question 'quando?' (when?) or 'por quanto tempo?' (how long? in terms of an event's span).

📌 Nota gramatical

'Durante' is commonly used with nouns representing seasons, events, trips, or stages of life (e.g., o verão, a aula, o almoço). It highlights the span of time in which something happened.

📌 Nota gramatical

The expression 'daqui a' means 'in' or 'from now' when talking about a future point in time. It literally translates to 'from here to [time]'. It is always followed by a time duration and used with the future tense or present tense indicating near future.

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'Daqui a' can be paired with the present tense for immediate future events or the simple future tense for more distant or formal statements. Both are common in European Portuguese.

📌 Nota gramatical

A great way to remember these mirror-image expressions is their structural symmetry: 'há' looks backward into the past (ago), while 'daqui a' looks forward into the future (in... time). Both require a time quantity.

📌 Nota gramatical

When expressing continuous states with the present tense, English often uses 'since' and 'for' interchangeably or similarly. In Portuguese, you must choose between 'desde' (followed by a starting date/point) and 'há' (followed by a length of time).

📌 Nota gramatical

Mastering A2 time expressions means mapping them correctly: 'há' = past ago / continuous duration; 'desde' = starting point; 'durante' = duration of an event; 'daqui a' = future offset from now.