Portuguese 5.5. Imperfect Subjunctive Tense

In Portuguese, the imperfect subjunctive tense, similar to the present perfect in the subjunctive, is used to express desires and wishes. However, these desires and wishes are often in the past or refer to unlikely events or possibilities, for example:

Se eu fosse você, não iria.

If I were you, I wouldn’t go.

Conjugation

In Portuguese, the stem used to form the imperfect subjunctive tense conjugation comes from the third-person plural form of the preterite rather than the infinitive, that is, the preterite that follows “eles” or “elas” minus “-ram,” for example:

Infinitive	Third-person plural preterite	Imperfect subjunctive stem
falar	eles/elas falaram	fala-
ir	eles/elas foram	fo-
comer	eles/elas comeram	come-

Next, one of the following endings is attached to the stem. All verbs follow these conjugation rules, and there are no irregular verbs.

eu	-sse	e.g., eu falasse
ele/ela/você	-sse	e.g., ele falasse
nós	-ssemos	e.g., nós falássemos
eles/elas/vocês	-ssem	e.g., eles falassem

Uses of the Imperfect Subjunctive

Let us discuss the common uses of the imperfect subjunctive and check some examples.

1. Expressing Past Desires, Wishes, Feelings, Requests, and Recommendations.

Whereas the present subjunctive is used to express opinion, possibility, and feelings such as fear, doubt, hope, desire, etc., about something in the present or the future, the imperfect subjunctive can be used similarly, but when the hope, desire, feeling, etc. itself is in the past.

For example, using the present subjunctive, we can say:

Quero que você venha à minha casa.	I want you to come to my house.
Sugiro que eles fiquem conosco.	I suggest that they stay with us.

If that hope or desire occurred in the past, the imperfect subjunctive should be used:

Queria que você viesse à minha casa.	I wanted you to come to my house.
Sugeri que ficassem conosco.	I suggested that they stay with us.

2. Unlikely or Hypothetical Conditional Statements.

As discussed previously, conditional statements that contain hypothetical or unlikely assumptions, such as “if I were you,” “if I were the president,” and “if I had a lot of money,” use the imperfect subjunctive, for example:

Se eu fosse você, não iria para a academia hoje.	If I were you, I wouldn’t go to the gym today.
Se eu tivesse muito dinheiro, compraria um palácio.	If I had a lot of money, I would buy a palace.

3. Expressions with “oxalá” or “tomara” that contain unlikely or hypothetical events in the present or the future.

We have previously discussed the use of “oxalá” and “tomara” in the present subjunctive to express hope for something to happen in the present or the future, for example:

Tomara que não chova esta noite.	Hopefully, it won’t rain tonight.
Oxalá que meu irmão venha hoje.	Hopefully, my brother will come today.

“Oxalá” and “tomara” can also be used along with the imperfect subjunctive to express hope that something, which is unlikely or improbable, would happen in the present or the future, for example:

Tomara que pudéssemos ganhar muito dinheiro em um ano.	I wish we could make a lot of money in one year.
Oxalá que meu irmão viesse hoje, mas ele está sempre ocupado.	I wish my brother would come today, but he is always busy.

Next: Past & Conditional Progressive Tense

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