the Conditional in Portuguese

By James Hall / / (4) Advanced Portuguese
the conditional in portuguese

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 do to say for example, I would always go to that restaurant for Sunday brunch. In Portuguese, that type of would gets treated by the Preterit Imperfect.

Its conjugation is easy and it goes like this:

Forming

I would go out eu sair ia
she would be able to ela poder ia
we would come nós vir íamos
they would show eles mostrar iam

It's very consistent. There are irregulars, but you only need to worry about these:

dizer > diria, diríamos, diriam
fazer > faria, faríamos, fariam

(the usual suspects!)

The main thing to watch for is that an accent gets added to the nós conjugation so the emphasis is always like this: íamos.

Eu iria mas, preciso trabalhar. ➜ I would go, but I have to work.
Eu pensaria que é verdade, sim. ➜ I would think that's true.
Nós jantaríamos agora mas está tarde. ➜ We would have dinner now but it's late.

And the irregulars:

fazer

Eu faria, mas eu não me importo. ➜ I would do it, but I just don't care.

dizer

Eu diria que ela é alta, sim. ➜ Yes, I would say that she's tall!

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the conditional in portuguese