Conditional Sentences with *Se* in Portuguese

In Brief

Portuguese uses se (“if”) to introduce a condition. Use the present indicative for general truths and repeatable situations, the future subjunctive for a possible future condition (se vier, “if someone comes”), and the imperfect subjunctive plus the conditional for an unreal or imagined situation (se tivesse dinheiro, viajaria, “if I had money, I would travel”).

Overview

A conditional sentence links a condition to its result: one thing happens, could happen, or would happen only if another thing is true. In Se chover, ficamos em casa (“If it rains, we’ll stay home”), rain is the condition and staying home is the result. The part beginning with se is often called the se-clause; a clause is simply a part of a sentence containing its own verb.

At B1, the main task is to distinguish real conditions from hypothetical ones. Portuguese verb forms show this distinction more clearly than English. English says “if you come” whether the reference is habitual or future, but Portuguese may contrast se vens with se vieres. The second form is the future subjunctive, a verb form used for a future event that is possible but not yet certain.

You will also meet other expressions that set conditions, especially caso (“in case”), desde que (“provided that”), and a menos que (“unless”). Their meaning is close to an if-clause, but their grammar is not always identical.

How It Works

The two parts of the sentence

The condition and result can appear in either order:

• Se tiveres tempo, telefona-me. — If you have time, call me.
• Telefona-me se tiveres tempo. — Call me if you have time.

A comma normally separates the clauses when the condition comes first. It is generally omitted when a short condition follows the result.

1. Present indicative for facts and repeated conditions

Use se + present indicative when the condition is presented as a fact, habit, or regular possibility. The indicative is the ordinary verb form used to state information directly.

Condition	Typical result	Meaning
se + present indicative	present indicative	general truth or repeated result
se + present indicative	imperative	instruction based on a current condition

• Se bebo café à noite, não durmo bem. — If I drink coffee at night, I do not sleep well.
• Se estás cansado, descansa. — If you are tired, rest.

The second example treats the tiredness as a present possibility, not as an imagined contrary-to-fact situation.

2. Future subjunctive for a possible future condition

For an event that may happen in the future, standard Portuguese commonly uses se + future subjunctive. The result can use the simple future, ir + infinitive, an imperative, or sometimes the present with future meaning.

Condition	Possible result
se + future subjunctive	simple future
se + future subjunctive	ir + infinitive
se + future subjunctive	imperative
se + future subjunctive	present with future meaning

• Se vieres amanhã, ficarei contente. — If you come tomorrow, I’ll be happy.
• Se chover, vamos ficar em casa. — If it rains, we’re going to stay home.
• Se precisares de ajuda, liga-me. — If you need help, call me.
• Se ele chegar cedo, jantamos juntos. — If he arrives early, we’ll have dinner together.

English uses a present-looking form after “if,” so translating word for word can lead to the wrong Portuguese tense. Future meaning after se does not normally take the simple future: use se tiver, not se terá.

Recognising the future subjunctive

For regular verbs, the future subjunctive often looks like the personal infinitive (an infinitive whose ending identifies the subject):

Person	falar	comer	partir
eu	falar	comer	partir
tu	falares	comeres	partires
ele/ela/você	falar	comer	partir
nós	falarmos	comermos	partirmos
vós	falardes	comerdes	partirdes
eles/elas/vocês	falarem	comerem	partirem

Several very common verbs are irregular. Their forms are based on the third-person plural of the preterite with -ram removed:

Infinitive	Future subjunctive (eu/ele)	Example
ser	for	Se for possível...
estar	estiver	Se estiver livre...
ter	tiver	Se tiver tempo...
ir	for	Se for a Lisboa...
fazer	fizer	Se fizer sol...
poder	puder	Se puder ajudar...
querer	quiser	Se quiser entrar...
vir	vier	Se vier amanhã...
dizer	disser	Se disser a verdade...

Context distinguishes ser and ir, which both have for: Se for verdade means “If it is true,” while Se for ao Porto means “If I/he/she goes to Porto.”

3. Imperfect subjunctive for unreal or remote conditions

Use se + imperfect subjunctive when imagining a present or future situation as unreal, unlikely, or contrary to reality. The subjunctive here marks the condition as hypothetical. The usual result uses the conditional, the form corresponding to English “would”: viajaria, compraria, faria.

Condition	Result	Meaning
se + imperfect subjunctive	conditional	unreal, imagined, or remote present/future situation

• Se tivesse dinheiro, viajaria mais. — If I had money, I would travel more.
• Se fosse rico, compraria uma casa. — If I were rich, I would buy a house.
• Se pudéssemos escolher, ficaríamos aqui. — If we could choose, we would stay here.

The imperfect subjunctive typically ends in -sse: falasse, comesse, partisse. Common irregular-looking forms include fosse (from ser or ir), tivesse, estivesse, fizesse, pudesse, quisesse, viesse, and dissesse.

English sometimes uses “were” and sometimes informal “was” in this pattern. Portuguese does not make that choice: Se eu fosse... is the standard form for “If I were...”

Choosing between a possible and a hypothetical condition

The speaker’s viewpoint matters more than objective probability:

Portuguese	English	Viewpoint
Se eu tiver tempo, vou contigo.	If I have time, I’ll go with you.	Time may realistically be available.
Se eu tivesse tempo, iria contigo.	If I had time, I would go with you.	I probably do not have time, or I am only imagining it.
Se ela vier, falamos com ela.	If she comes, we’ll talk to her.	Her arrival is an open future possibility.
Se ela viesse, falaríamos com ela.	If she came, we would talk to her.	Her arrival feels unlikely or hypothetical.

Do not choose the imperfect subjunctive merely because English uses a past-looking form. Decide whether the Portuguese condition is being presented as open and possible or remote and imagined.

Other conditional expressions

Several conjunctions—linking expressions that join clauses—normally require a subjunctive form:

Expression	Meaning	Typical construction
caso	in case; if	caso + present subjunctive
desde que	provided that; as long as	desde que + subjunctive when it states a condition
a menos que	unless	a menos que + subjunctive
contanto que	provided that	contanto que + subjunctive

• Caso chova, levaremos guarda-chuvas. — In case it rains, we’ll take umbrellas.
• Podes ficar, desde que não faças barulho. — You may stay, provided that you do not make noise.
• Iremos a pé, a menos que esteja a chover. — We’ll walk unless it is raining.

Notice the contrast between se chover (future subjunctive) and caso chova (present subjunctive). Similar meaning does not guarantee the same verb form.

Examples in Context

Portuguese	English	Note
Se aqueces gelo, ele derrete.	If you heat ice, it melts.	General truth: present + present.
Se não te sentes bem, fica em casa.	If you don’t feel well, stay home.	Present condition + instruction.
Se vieres, ficarei contente.	If you come, I’ll be happy.	Open future condition; informal singular tu.
Se tiver tempo, ligo-lhe amanhã.	If I have time, I’ll call you tomorrow.	Future subjunctive of ter.
Se fizer bom tempo, vamos à praia.	If the weather is good, we’ll go to the beach.	Future subjunctive with an irregular stem.
Se puderem chegar antes das oito, jantamos juntos.	If you can arrive before eight, we’ll have dinner together.	Plural future subjunctive.
Se fores ao supermercado, compra pão.	If you go to the supermarket, buy bread.	Future condition + imperative.
Se eu soubesse a resposta, dizia-te.	If I knew the answer, I’d tell you.	Hypothetical; an informal spoken result form.
Se tivesse dinheiro, viajaria.	If I had money, I would travel.	Unreal present condition.
Se fosse rico, compraria uma casa.	If I were rich, I would buy a house.	Imagined situation with ser.
Se morássemos mais perto, ver-nos-íamos todas as semanas.	If we lived closer, we would see each other every week.	Remote condition + conditional result.
Caso chova, o evento será realizado no interior.	In case it rains, the event will be held indoors.	Caso + present subjunctive; formal tone.
Empresto-te o carro, desde que tenhas cuidado.	I’ll lend you the car as long as you are careful.	A permission subject to a condition.
Não cancelaremos a viagem, a menos que haja uma tempestade.	We won’t cancel the trip unless there is a storm.	A menos que + present subjunctive.

Common Mistakes

Using the simple future after se

• Wrong: Se terá tempo, virá connosco.
• Right: Se tiver tempo, virá connosco.
• Why: A future condition normally takes the future subjunctive, not the simple future. The future may appear in the result clause.

Using the present for a clearly future condition

• Wrong in careful standard usage: Se vens amanhã, ficarei contente.
• Right: Se vieres amanhã, ficarei contente.
• Why: When coming tomorrow is an open condition, Portuguese normally marks it with the future subjunctive. A present form can occur in conversational plans, but it is not the safest general pattern to learn.

Putting the conditional in both clauses

• Wrong: Se teria dinheiro, viajaria.
• Right: Se tivesse dinheiro, viajaria.
• Why: The imagined condition uses the imperfect subjunctive; the result uses the conditional.

Confusing tiver and tivesse

• Wrong meaning: Se tivesse tempo amanhã, telefono-te when the time is a realistic open possibility.
• Better: Se tiver tempo amanhã, telefono-te.
• Why: Tiver presents the future possibility as open. Tivesse makes it more remote or suggests that having time is unlikely.

Using the future subjunctive after caso

• Wrong: Caso chover, ficamos em casa.
• Right: Caso chova, ficamos em casa.
• Why: Caso normally takes the present subjunctive for a future possibility, unlike se, which takes chover here.

Forgetting that a menos que already means “unless”

• Wrong: A menos que não chova, sairemos. when the intended meaning is “Unless it rains, we’ll go out.”
• Right: A menos que chova, sairemos.
• Why: A menos que already contains the negative exception. Add não only when the intended condition itself is negative.

Usage Notes

The main patterns are shared across Portuguese varieties, but everyday choices differ. European Portuguese readily uses the simple future in a result such as Se vieres, ficarei contente. In conversation, both European and Brazilian speakers often choose ir + infinitive or a present form instead: Se vieres/se você vier, vou ficar contente. Brazilian Portuguese normally uses você rather than tu in many regions, so se você vier is especially common; where tu is used with traditional agreement, the form is se tu vieres.

The conditional itself also has a common spoken alternative. Alongside the more formally matched Se eu soubesse, dir-te-ia or diria para você, conversation often uses the imperfect indicative in the result: Se eu soubesse, dizia-te. This is natural in both major varieties in suitable contexts, but the imperfect subjunctive remains in the se-clause. For exams and formal writing, the imperfect subjunctive + conditional pattern is the clearest default.

Caso is more formal and cautious than ordinary se. It is common in notices, instructions, business messages, and contingency plans: Caso necessite de assistência, contacte a receção. Desde que can also mean “since” in a time expression, so context matters: Moro aqui desde que nasci means “I have lived here since I was born,” not “provided that I was born.”

Beyond the Basics: Past and Mixed Conditions

To imagine a past that did not happen, Portuguese uses the pluperfect subjunctive (a form referring to an unreal earlier event) in the condition and usually the compound conditional in the result:

• Se tivesse sabido, teria vindo. — If I had known, I would have come.
• Se me tivesses avisado, não teria perdido o comboio. — If you had warned me, I would not have missed the train.

Here tivesse sabido is not the same structure as simple tivesse dinheiro. It contains ter in the imperfect subjunctive plus a past participle—the verb form used in combinations such as sabido and feito.

Mixed conditionals connect different times:

• Se tivesse aceitado aquele emprego, agora moraria no Porto. — If I had accepted that job, I would now live in Porto.
• Se fosse mais organizado, não teria perdido o prazo ontem. — If I were more organised, I would not have missed the deadline yesterday.

These patterns belong to a later stage of study, but they follow the same central idea: the verb form shows whether the condition is open, remote, or contrary to fact.

A final advanced distinction concerns se meaning “whether” rather than “if”: Não sei se ele vem (“I don’t know whether he is coming”). This is an indirect question, not a conditional sentence, so the conditional patterns in this article do not automatically apply.

Practice Tips

1. Build three versions of one idea. Start with Se tenho tempo, leio (habit), then Se tiver tempo, vou ler (open future), and finally Se tivesse tempo, leria (hypothetical). Changing only the verb forms makes the meaning contrast memorable.
2. Learn irregular forms in useful chunks. Practise se for, se tiver, se puder, se quiser, se fizer, and se vier as complete starters rather than as isolated conjugation entries.
3. Label the speaker’s viewpoint. When reading or listening, mark each condition “habit/fact,” “open future,” or “imagined.” Then check whether the verb form matches that viewpoint.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Conditional — learn forms such as faria, poderia, and viajaria before using them as hypothetical results.