In english we say, I wanted to this and that… all_the_time. To say the same thing in portuguese it’s tempting to say something like, Eu estava querendo x & y…. But this is very clunky, isn’t it? Brazilians will use the imperfect past form of QUERER to express this. Like this: Eu queria fazer uma…
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...SER = to be. Seria is the conditional form: would be.
deveria + ter = ought to have / should have
To say, would you add an ia to the verb’s infinitive. The irregulars are not that difficult to learn.
This Street Dialog is divided into 3 parts. There’s a lot to learn here. Even though this is an intermediate-advanced sequence, there are things to learn at all levels so – I encourage you to watch these 3 dialogs, no matter what level you’re at! Use the PAUSE & REWIND technique 😉 These are based…
Using IA in Portuguese to express “was going to do” or, “could do” is one of the most powerful hacks that I know of.
Read more...The phrase pensei que seems like it should always trigger the subjunctive, but not so. In Portuguese, there are grey areas that don’t always strictly obey the grammar rules. All languages have inconsistencies. The thing to learn in this dialog is that pensei que is a phrase that is used all the time, and you…
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…
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