Conditional in Portuguese

In Portuguese, we use the Conditional tense to express desire, talk about unreal scenarios, or convey politeness. As you’ll soon see, however, the Imperfect tense (Pretérito Imperfeito) serves the same purpose and is more common in spoken language.

In the first half of this post, we’ll look into the Portuguese Conditional tense – conjugation and usage. In the second half, we’ll find out what the Portuguese equivalents of English Conditionals look like.

Let’s dive in.  

Portuguese Conditional tense

Conjugation

It is relatively easy to conjugate verbs in the conditional tense. We go from the Infinitive form (our stem) and add the following endings: -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam. 

Take the verb gostar as an example: 

The following verbs are exceptions to the above (the endings are the same but the stem won’t match the infinitive form):

Usage

We can use the Conditional tense in several situations as shown below. In spoken language, however, the Imperfect* tense is more common.

Having said that, let’s look at the different contexts where we can use the conditional tense. 

* Learn more about the imperfect tense: Portuguese Perfect vs. Imperfect Tense: Know When to Use Which.

Desire

We use the conditional tense to express desire or wish for something:

Here are more common versions of the above using the Imperfect tense instead of the Conditional:

Unreal scenarios