When I last posted about the Preterit Indicative, it was all about regular verbs. Now let’s look at the most common IRREGULARs in this tense. » *regular verbs are here. The “simple past tense” (the Preterit Indicative) is used to talk about action that’s over and done – in the frame of your story: I…
Read more...The Preterit Indicative is “the simple past tense” Ready to move on the past tenses? Start here, with the Preterit Indicative. I call it the simple past because it’s the clearest, simplest verb tense (*a verb tense describes a time that something happened.) in Portuguese. Hang around here a bit and you will meet the…
Read more...The future subjunctive is used to talk about things that are uncertain to occur in the future. %%sep%% The words IF and WHEN usually trigger this tense.
Read more...Using the Present Subjunctive Portuguese uses the Subjunctive mood to indicate something is uncertain to happen or to have occurred. There are 3 different degrees of uncertainty: (1) extremely unlikely, (2) plausible, (3) likely. The Present Subjunctive is used for case (2): actions that are plausible, yet have not yet occurred. Use this tense to talk…
Read more...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. Some get scared. But it doesn’t have to be that way. 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,…
Read more...Using the Imperfect Subjunctive Portuguese uses the Subjunctive mood to indicate something is uncertain to happen or to have occurred. There are 3 different degrees of uncertainty: (1) extremely unlikely, (2) plausible, (3) likely. The Imperfect Subjunctive is used for case (1): actions that are extremely unlikely to happen or to have happened. If I were…
Read more...In Portuguese, there are several ways to refer to something that happened in the past – each with different shades of meaning. When you choose one Portuguese past tense over another, you’re letting people know more about the story you’re telling. Talking about the past is always an act of story-telling. The Preterit Indicative tense…
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 mood 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 form…
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...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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