Conditional in Portuguese

In Brief

The Portuguese conditional usually corresponds to English would + verb: viajaria means “I/he/she would travel.” Form it by adding -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -íeis, -iam to the infinitive, with a few important stem changes such as fazer → faria. It is especially useful for polite language, imagined results, advice, and a future viewed from a past moment.

Overview

The conditional is a mood (a verb form that presents an action through an attitude such as possibility or hypothesis), although Portuguese grammar also traditionally treats it as a tense. In Portugal it is commonly called the condicional; in Brazilian grammatical terminology you will often see futuro do pretérito do indicativo, literally “future of the past.” Both labels refer to forms such as gostaria, poderia, faria, and viria.

At B1, its central meaning is close to English would: Eu viajaria means “I would travel.” However, English would has several jobs, and they do not all map automatically to this Portuguese form. In particular, past habits (“When I was young, I would swim every day”) normally use the Portuguese imperfect, not the conditional.

The conditional matters far beyond hypothetical sentences. It softens requests and opinions, expresses advice with dever, and reports something that was still in the future at a past point: Disse que viria (“He said he would come”). Portuguese often omits the subject pronoun because the verb ending already identifies the person; context distinguishes eu gostaria from ele/ela gostaria, since both have the same ending.

How It Works

Regular formation

Keep the complete infinitive—the dictionary form such as falar, comer, or partir—and add the endings below. All three regular verb groups use the same endings.

Person	Ending	falar (to speak)	comer (to eat)	partir (to leave)
eu	-ia	falaria	comeria	partiria
tu	-ias	falarias	comerias	partirias
ele / ela / você	-ia	falaria	comeria	partiria
nós	-íamos	falaríamos	comeríamos	partiríamos
vós	-íeis	falaríeis	comeríeis	partiríeis
eles / elas / vocês	-iam	falariam	comeriam	partiriam

The written accents in -íamos and -íeis are essential. The vós form is uncommon in most everyday speech, but it remains useful for recognition in religious, literary, historical, and some regional language.

The same formation works with many very common verbs:

• ter → teria (“would have”)
• ser → seria (“would be”)
• estar → estaria (“would be”)
• ir → iria (“would go”)
• vir → viria (“would come”)
• poder → poderia (“could / would be able to”)
• querer → quereria (“would want”), although gostaria de is often more natural in a polite request

The main irregular stems

The conditional uses the same irregular stems as the simple future. Only three very common verbs require a major stem change:

Infinitive	Conditional stem	Example	Meaning
fazer	far-	faria	would do / make
dizer	dir-	diria	would say / tell
trazer	trar-	traria	would bring

Do not build these forms mechanically as fazeria, dizeria, or trazeria. Their compounds follow the same pattern: for example, contradizer → contradiria.

The verb pôr loses its circumflex before the ending: poria, porias, poríamos. This follows naturally once the ending is attached, but the spelling can surprise learners.

Four core uses

1. An imagined or conditional result

The conditional presents what would happen under an unreal or unlikely condition:

Se tivesse tempo, viajaria mais. — “If I had time, I would travel more.”

Here tivesse is the imperfect subjunctive (a form used in this pattern to present the condition as unreal or hypothetical), while viajaria gives the result. The full system of se clauses is a separate topic, but this pairing is the essential B1 pattern.

2. Polite requests, wishes, and opinions

Conditional forms make a request or statement less direct:

• Gostaria de um café. — “I would like a coffee.”
• Poderia fechar a janela? — “Could you close the window?”
• Eu diria que é demasiado caro. — “I would say it is too expensive.”

Politeness is not encoded by the verb alone. Tone, context, forms of address, and words such as por favor still matter.

3. Advice and recommendations

The conditional of dever is a common way to say what someone should do:

Deverias falar com a médica. — “You should speak to the doctor.”

With eu, it can frame a tentative personal plan: Eu deveria descansar mais (“I should rest more”). In much of Brazil, você deveria is more usual than tu deverias; in Portugal, tu deverias is entirely normal where tu is used.

4. Future viewed from the past

Portuguese uses the conditional for an event that was future relative to a past statement, thought, or expectation:

Ela disse que chegaria às oito. — “She said she would arrive at eight.”

The arrival may already have happened by the time the sentence is spoken. What matters is its position after the past act of saying.

Negative statements and questions

Put não before the verb:

Não faria isso. — “I would not do that.”

Questions use ordinary Portuguese question structure, often with the subject omitted:

Aceitaria esta proposta? — “Would you accept this proposal?”

A noun or pronoun can clarify the subject: Você aceitaria?, Tu aceitarias?, Eles aceitariam?

Examples in Context

Portuguese	English	Note
Gostaria de um café.	I would like a coffee.	Polite order or wish
Poderias ajudar-me?	Could you help me?	Informal singular tu; European-style pronoun placement
Poderia enviar-me o relatório, por favor?	Could you send me the report, please?	Polite request; subject understood from context
Se tivesse tempo, viajaria mais.	If I had time, I would travel more.	Hypothetical condition and result
Sem o teu apoio, não conseguiria terminar.	Without your support, I would not manage to finish.	The condition is implied rather than introduced by se
Eu compraria esta casa, mas é demasiado cara.	I would buy this house, but it is too expensive.	Desire blocked by reality
No teu lugar, falaria com ele.	In your place, I would speak to him.	Advice
Deverias descansar um pouco.	You should rest for a while.	Recommendation with dever
Disse que viria depois do almoço.	He said he would come after lunch.	Future viewed from the past
Sabíamos que a viagem seria longa.	We knew the journey would be long.	Past expectation
Ela prometeu que traria os documentos.	She promised she would bring the documents.	Irregular stem trar-
Eu diria que esta é a melhor opção.	I would say this is the best option.	Tentative opinion
O que farias nessa situação?	What would you do in that situation?	Irregular fazer → far-
Eles aceitariam a proposta se as condições fossem melhores.	They would accept the proposal if the conditions were better.	Third-person plural result

Common Mistakes

Adding the ending to the wrong form

• Wrong: falavaia com ela.
• Right: Falaria com ela.
• Why: Add the conditional ending directly to the infinitive: falar + ia. Do not combine the imperfect falava with a conditional ending.

Regularizing an irregular stem

• Wrong: Eu fazeria isso amanhã.
• Right: Eu faria isso amanhã.
• Why: Fazer, dizer, and trazer use far-, dir-, and trar- in both the conditional and simple future.

Using the conditional after se in the standard hypothetical pattern

• Wrong: Se teria tempo, viajaria.
• Right: Se tivesse tempo, viajaria.
• Why: For an unreal present condition, standard Portuguese uses the imperfect subjunctive after se and the conditional in the result. The condition is se tivesse; the consequence is viajaria.

Translating every English “would” with the conditional

• Wrong: Quando era criança, nadaria todos os dias. (if you mean a regular past habit)
• Right: Quando era criança, nadava todos os dias.
• Why: English uses “would” for repeated past actions. Portuguese normally uses the imperfect—nadava—for that meaning. Nadaria instead suggests a hypothetical result or future from a past viewpoint.

Losing the accent in the first-person plural

• Wrong: Nos viajariamos juntos.
• Right: Nós viajaríamos juntos.
• Why: Both nós and the ending -íamos need their written accents here. The accent also signals the correct stress.

Mixing the subject and ending

• Wrong: Você poderias ajudar?
• Right: Você poderia ajudar? / Tu poderias ajudar?
• Why: Você takes a third-person-singular verb; tu takes the second-person-singular form in the standard paradigm.

Usage Notes

Portugal and Brazil

The form itself is understood throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, but terminology and frequency vary. Conditional (condicional) is a familiar label, especially in European Portuguese teaching. In Brazil, future of the past (futuro do pretérito) is the standard school-grammar name.

Spoken Brazilian Portuguese often uses the imperfect indicative where careful written language would use a conditional, especially in a result clause: Se eu tivesse dinheiro, comprava uma casa alongside the more explicit compraria uma casa. Similar substitution also occurs in informal European Portuguese. As a learner, use compraria in neutral and formal writing; learn to recognize comprava in spontaneous speech. The imperfect subjunctive after se remains important in either version: se tivesse.

Forms of address affect the ending. With tu, use -ias: Poderias ajudar? With você, use the third-person form: Poderia ajudar? Because Portuguese often drops subjects, the latter can also be a tactful request without explicitly choosing a form of address.

Politeness without over-softening

Gostaria de... is the standard safe choice for ordering or stating a polite wish: Gostaria de reservar uma mesa. For a request, Poderia...? is less direct than a bare imperative. In relaxed conversation, however, present forms such as Queria... (“I wanted...”) and Pode...? (“Can you...?”) are also very common and can sound perfectly courteous. Do not assume that the longest conditional sentence is always the most natural one.

Object pronouns

Object pronouns—short words such as me, te, and lhe that stand for the person affected by the action—vary in placement by region and register. European Portuguese commonly has Poderia ajudar-me? Brazilian Portuguese commonly has Poderia me ajudar? Both are natural in their respective standards. Pronoun placement is a larger topic; focus first on recognizing the conditional form inside the sentence.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

Conditional as reported information

In journalistic or formal language, the conditional can distance the speaker from an unconfirmed claim:

O acordo incluiria novas medidas fiscais. — “The agreement reportedly/allegedly includes new tax measures.”

This does not necessarily describe an imagined result. It signals that the information is attributed, tentative, or not independently confirmed. English may use “would,” “reportedly,” or “is said to,” depending on context.

Conditional versus compound conditional

The simple conditional normally looks forward from an imagined point: Eu iria (“I would go”). For an unreal action located before another reference point, Portuguese uses the compound conditional: conditional ter + a past participle (a form such as feito or visto):

• Eu teria ido, mas estava doente. — “I would have gone, but I was ill.”
• Ela teria aceitado a proposta. — “She would have accepted the proposal.”

This distinction is especially important for regrets and unreal past conditions. It belongs to the next stage of study, but recognizing teria + participle prevents confusion with the simple form.

Formal pronoun placement inside the verb

Very formal written Portuguese may place an unstressed object pronoun inside a future or conditional form, a pattern called mesoclisis: dir-lhe-ia (“I/he/she would tell him/her”) or far-se-ia (“it would be done”). It is associated with highly formal, legal, bureaucratic, or deliberately elevated style and is especially relevant to European Portuguese. Everyday speech normally chooses another arrangement, such as diria-lhe in European usage or lhe diria in Brazilian usage. Learn to recognize mesoclisis; most B1 learners do not need to produce it.

An implied condition

A conditional sentence does not need an explicit se clause. The condition may be understood from context:

Eu não aceitaria. — “I wouldn’t accept [if I were in that situation].”

Expressions such as no teu lugar (“in your place”), sem isso (“without that”), and com mais tempo (“with more time”) often carry the hypothetical condition without se. This makes the conditional useful for tactful advice and disagreement.

Practice Tips

1. Build from the future tense. Take six verbs you know in the simple future, keep the same regular or irregular stem, and replace the future endings with -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -íeis, -iam. Include fazer, dizer, and trazer every few sessions.
2. Practise by function, not only by paradigm. Make one polite request with poderia, one wish with gostaria, one piece of advice with deveria, and one hypothetical result with -ria each day.
3. Listen for competing forms. When you hear se eu tivesse..., comprava/compraria..., note whether the speaker uses the imperfect or conditional in the result. This trains you to understand natural regional and register variation without losing the neutral written rule.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Simple Future — the conditional shares its regular formation and irregular stems.
• Next step: Conditional Sentences (Se Clauses) — learn how real and unreal conditions select different verb forms.
• Advanced next step: Compound Conditional — use teria + past participle for unreal, expected, or reported events in the past.