The Condicional

📌 Nota gramatical

The conditional tense (condicional) is used in European Portuguese to express what would happen under certain conditions, to make polite requests, or to express a future action viewed from a past perspective. It corresponds to 'would + verb' in English.

📌 Nota gramatical

To form the conditional for regular verbs in European Portuguese, take the full infinitive verb (e.g., falar, comer, partir) and add the endings: -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -íreis, -iam. Note that the endings are identical to those of the imperfect indicative of -er/-ir verbs, but here they attach to the whole infinitive.

📌 Nota gramatical

Just like the future indicative, the conditional has a few verbs that drop the vowels 'e' or 'i' from the infinitive ending before taking the standard conditional endings. For dizer, fazer, and trazer, the stems become dir-, fer-, and trar- (resulting in diria, faria, traria).

📌 Nota gramatical

Verbs like pôr, querer, saber, ter, and vir undergo stem modifications in the conditional. Pôr becomes por-, querer becomes quer-, saber becomes sab-, ter becomes ter- (with double r: teria), and vir becomes vir- (viria). The standard endings (-ia, -ias, etc.) follow these stems.

📌 Nota gramatical

In European Portuguese, using the conditional with verbs like querer (gostaria), poder (poderia), and dever (deveria) is the standard way to sound polite, avoiding harsh direct commands or demands. It softens opinions and suggestions in daily interactions at work or shops.

📌 Nota gramatical

To express hypothetical situations that are contrary to present facts, Portuguese uses an 'se' clause with the imperfect subjunctive (pretérito imperfeito do conjuntivo), followed by the conditional in the main clause. This mirrors the English 'If I had..., I would...' structure.

📌 Nota gramatical

The conditional can express a future action relative to a point in the past. When telling a story set in the past, you use the conditional to describe something that was still to happen at that moment.

📌 Nota gramatical

To give advice without sounding overly bossy or confrontational, speakers use 'deveria' (should). This functions similarly to modal verbs in English and helps express personal opinions on what is correct or prudent.

📌 Nota gramatical

While the imperfect of 'ter' or modal verbs is often used for past probability, the conditional can sometimes express uncertainty or wonder regarding past events or situations, mirroring how English uses 'would' or 'must have' in narrative contexts.

📌 Nota gramatical

In European Portuguese, pronouns are normally placed after the verb (enclisis) joined by a hyphen, unless a proclisis trigger (like 'não', 'se', 'que') precedes the verb. Because the conditional starts with an infinitive base ending in a consonant sound before the ending (-ia), pronoun attachment requires standard phonological adjustments.

📌 Nota gramatical

Learners often mix up the future indicative (irei, falará) and the conditional (iria, falaria). The future indicates an event that is expected to happen with certainty, whereas the conditional represents a hypothesis, a polite request, or an outcome dependent on a condition.

📌 Nota gramatical

To express an action that would have happened in the past under certain conditions, but did not actually happen, European Portuguese uses the conditional compound. It is formed with the conditional of 'ter' (teria) plus the past participle of the main verb.