Passar vs. gastar
In Portuguese, the English verb to spend translates to either passar or gastar depending on what exactly is being spent. The general rule is straightforward: you use passar when talking about spending time, and you use gastar when referring to spending money, physical resources, or energy.
Passar
A1The word passar is used exclusively when you want to express spending time or living through a specific period, such as holidays, hours, or entire seasons.
Eu adoro passar o natal com a minha família.
(I love to spend Christmas with my family.)
Eles vão passar o fim de semana na casa de praia.
(They are going to spend the weekend at the beach house.)
Nós podemos passar a tarde inteira conversando na varanda.
(We can spend the entire afternoon talking on the porch.)
Ela costuma passar muito tempo no telefone com as amigas.
(She usually spends a lot of time on the phone with her friends.)
Como você gosta de passar as suas férias de verão?
(How do you like to spend your summer vacation?)
O gato gosta de passar a noite dormindo no telhado.
(The cat likes to spend the night sleeping on the roof.)
Vou passar algumas horas estudando para o exame de amanhã.
(I will spend a few hours studying for tomorrow's exam.)
Gastar
A2The word gastar is used when you are spending money, consuming physical resources, using up energy, or wearing something out.
Eu não quero gastar todo o meu salário no primeiro dia do mês.
(I do not want to spend my entire salary on the first day of the month.)
Eles costumam gastar muita água lavando o carro no quintal.
(They usually spend a lot of water washing the car in the yard.)
Você não deve gastar a sua energia discutindo com pessoas negativas.
(You should not spend your energy arguing with negative people.)
Nós vamos gastar uma pequena fortuna nessa viagem para a Europa.
(We are going to spend a small fortune on this trip to Europe.)
Aquele ar condicionado velho costuma gastar muita eletricidade.
(That old air conditioning unit usually spends a lot of electricity.)
Ela tentou não gastar mais do que cem reais no supermercado hoje.
(She tried not to spend more than one hundred reais at the supermarket today.)
Não faz sentido gastar os nossos limitados recursos neste projeto.
(It makes no sense to spend our limited resources on this project.)
Summary
To choose the correct verb, simply ask yourself what is being spent. If the sentence is about spending time, seasons, or hours, you must use passar. However, if the context involves spending money, consuming materials, using up energy, or depleting any physical resources, the correct choice is gastar.