In Portuguese, there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past, each with varying shades of meaning. Verb tenses! The Past Imperfect – officially called the Imperfect Indicative (o Pretérito Imperfeito), is used when talking about continuous or ongoing action in the past. Something that used to occur or, would occur. You’ll…
Read more...In the previous post we talked about this verb tense — the imperfect subjunctive, as well. So many of you have asked to see even more examples of this super-useful grammar trick so: aqui estão! (here they are!) the Imperfect Subjunctive is insanely great. Even better with the Conditional! And BTW, only language professors need…
Read more...The subjunctive mood has been known to break students. Every serious Portuguese student runs straight into it. Some get hurt. Do not let that happen to you! The Portuguese Subjunctive is actually a rose with thorns. It’s a beautiful part of the language that should be embraced and used with style, for it is truly…
Read more...Using the Imperfect Subjunctive In general, The subjunctive tense is used when the action you’re talking about has a degree of uncertainty. The Imperfect Subjunctive is used for actions that are very unlikely to happen, or to have happened. It’s sometimes called, the Past Subjunctive – that’s because it often talks about things that were unlikely…
Read more...Use The future subjunctive is used to talk about future actions that are not completely sure to happen. Such as, As soon as I get off work, I’ll call you. When I get to the beach, we’ll go surfing. If you talk to Raquel, tell her I’m at home. In Portuguese these become, Assim que…
Read more...In Portuguese there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past. Each, with different meanings. The Preterit tense is the simplest of these. It’s like saying, I bought my own private jet yesterday.. Why isn’t that enough to know? Because in Portuguese, you will use a different verb conjugation to convey…
Read more...Forming the Conditional in Portuguese is the English equivalent of would or could. To a language instructor, this tense is known as “the future of the preterite”. We just call it, THE CONDITIONAL. Use it whenever you want to say would or could in the FUTURE (only). It’s not used for the past as we…
Read more...Use I think the Portuguese Imperative is the_most_confusing verb tense to understand. I try and steer beginners far, far away from it because: Brazilians do not use this form with any consistency. What I really mean to say here is, they follow the rules of grammar, but they switch between the regular and the tu…
Read more...Use Use it to talk about things that are happening right now! Think of it as progress in the present: working, shopping, talking, studying. The Present Progressive is equivalent to the ing ending in English. It’s easy to learn. There is no irregular verb in the present progressive in Portuguese. Furthermore, the conjugations are the…
Read more...Some Portuguese adverbs are made for adding INTENSITY (emphasis). They have their own name too: adverbs of intensity. You don’t need to actually know what an “adverb of intensity” is – you already use them every day. You just need to know the vocabulary for expressing things like, ‘hardly’, ‘almost’, ‘completely’ as in, ‘I kind…
Read more...The preterite indicative mood was discussed in this post is the simplest form of the past tense. It specifically talks about action that is over and done. Once you’ve gotten the conjugation down you need to know about the most common irregulars. Let’s look at seven of the most common: Ser to be (more about…
Read more...15 you need to know Once you’ve gotten comfortable conjugating verbs in the present tense, the next tense to know is called the Preterite. It’s officially referred to as the preterite perfect, indicative mood. That’s what a linguist would call it. It’s commonly known as the simple past. By now you’ve come to realize that…
Read more...In Portuguese there are several ways to talk about the future, each with varying shades of meaning. The present subjunctive is used to show that some idea or action is hypothetical.
Read more...In Portuguese there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past, each with varying shades of meaning. The present perfect indicative (!) includes expressions like ‘I have been going out every night’. Use it when talking about action that has been happening (and still is).
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