In complex sentences, we use the Conjuntivo mood in Portuguese to refer to uncertain or doubtful facts, possibilities, hypothetical scenarios or desires. And this is also usually done through certain “trigger words”. This mood comprises three main tenses having both a simple and compound form. So that’s 6 tenses in total: Presente do Conjuntivo, Pretérito Imperfeito do Conjuntivo e Futuro do Conjuntivo. And then the compound versions of these: Pretérito Perfeito Composto do Conjuntivo, Pretérito mais-que-perfeito Composto and Futuro Composto do Conjuntivo.
How will I know??
No, I’m not going to break out into a Whitney song! But you’ll know based on context and intuition. So, in this case, you should trust your feelings ;).
I know the names of the tenses sound complicated but it’s all about understanding the context in which they are said. You’ll be happy to know there are specific sentence structures that “trigger” these tenses. But to be able to implement these, it’s important to have a very good base in Portuguese already. It’s not enough for me to say something like the word “when” triggers the Future Subjunctive. Although this is true, it’s not true every time we use the word. A strong base will enable you to identify the difference between the following contexts.
Examples with Quando:
“When are you going?” (quando vais? – indicative present tense)
“When did you arrive?” (quando chegaste? – indicative past tense)
“When you arrive tomorrow, call me.” (Quando chegares amanhã, liga-me – Future Subjunctive)
As you can see the word “quando” only triggered a subjunctive tense in one of these examples. So how do you know which one will be used? This depends a lot on the context and which specific words were used. This is probably the hardest thing to learn about Portuguese verbs when looking at them with a beginner’s eyes. Secondly, it’s not always obvious which subjunctive to use when you’re a beginner. And thirdly, if you’re an English speaker, you’ll notice the conjuntivo mood in Portuguese is not used the same as in English. There are however two additional rules that will help a lot in learning this. One of them is that all subjunctive tenses in Portuguese are always used in complex sentences. And the second one is that there needs to be a verbal tense agreement. The latter means that if you use a certain tense in one clause, the subjunctive tense you use will be determined by what tense you used in the other clause. More examples of this are here, and I will go into more detail as well as you navigate through the tenses.
What’s a complex sentence you ask?
It’s a sentence that is comprised of at least two clauses in which one of them is dependent on the other. What’s a clause? A clause is a group of words that contain a subject and a verb that form a functional sentence. This relationship is crucial; a clause conveys information about what a subject is or is doing, rather than simply being a random grouping of words.
Let’s look at an example of how the Portuguese conjuntivo would relate to English :
“If I had known that then I would have gone a different way.”
1st clause: “If I had known”
2nd clause: “I would have gone a different way.”
In the example above this would be an example of a subjective (conjuntivo) tense in Portuguese in the 1st clause:
1st clause: “Se eu soubesse” (Pretérito Imperfeito do Conjuntivo)
2nd clause: teria ido por outro caminho. (Conditional composto)
Having said that though, now that you’re in the advanced stages, you no doubt have seen, noticed and heard this mood all the time. You may have instinctively been using it yourself because you sensed it “sounded right” at that moment.
Many of the trigger sentences or words will include “se” (if) and “que” (that). But not always. The best way to learn and practice the conjuntivo mood is to look at lots and lots of examples!
Below is a list with each tense linking to its own separate post. I will add more links as I write the lessons):
- Presente do Conjuntivo
- Pretérito Imperfeito do Conjuntivo
- Futuro do Conjuntivo
- Pretérito Perfeito Composto do Conjuntivo
- Pretérito mais-que-perfeito Composto
- Futuro Composto do Conjuntivo