Using would, could and should in Portuguese
Learn equivalent terms to would, could and should in Portuguese
Welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips (podcast in English) called using would, could and should in Portuguese
On today’s podcast we are going to speak about using would, could and should in Portuguese. This is what we call in Brazil “futuro do pretérito”. Literally you could understand that as “future of the past”, but don’t worry about this name. It will be a simple matter to understand.
Pay attention to those phrases:
“I would teach you” – In Portuguese, we’d say “Eu te ensinaria”.
“I could teach you” becomes “eu poderia te ensinar” in Portuguese; and “I should teach you” becomes “eu deveria te ensinar”.
Note that we used the termination “ria” in all verbs here. This is what we call “futuro do presente”. That’s it.
Instead of saying “I would go to the party”, we say “Eu iria à festa”; instead of saying “I would break the leg”, we say “eu quebaria a perna” in Portuguese. This will be applied to all verbs!
So, as always, let’s take some examples to conjugate the verbs. Try to repeat with me, in order to practice your pronunciation.
Futuro do pretérito – Ir verb
How to use would in Portuguese
Note that the termination varies slightly when we are referring to pronouns in the plural form, as always happens in Portuguese.
Lets’s take another example, this time using “poder”
Equivalent Portuguese combination to could
Note, I’m using “poder” as the main verb here, but I could also use it as an auxiliary one. For example:
You could use it – becomes “você poderia usar isso” in Portuguese.
Plus, the main verb remains in the present tense. In this case “usar”.
Let’s take an example with the verb “dever”
Equivalent Portuguese combination to should
The same happens here. I could use the verb “dever” as an auxiliary one. For example: “Eu deveria estudar” – “I should study”.
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Click on the link to access our previous episode about ir future tense in Portuguese
This site (only in Portuguese0 has a pdf containing a few combinations using futuro do pretérito in Portuguese
That’s enough for today.
I hope you like it.
Marcos Sales
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muito bom, mas eu acrescentaria na conjugação em Português a segunda pessoa do singular
Eu iria
tu irias
ele/ela/você iria
a conjugação com você entra na terceira pessoa do singular
Tem razão, Regina! A ideia no caso foi ensinar a maneira informal de falar, mas realmente poderia ter acrescentado a informação. Nos demais episódios comento sobre a segunda pessoa. Obrigado pela dica e continue conosco!