Conditional forms for wishes and hypothetical outcomes

In brief

In Brazilian Portuguese, the conditional (futuro do pretérito) expresses what someone would do in an imagined situation. It also makes requests and wishes sound polite: gostaria means ‘I would like,’ and poderia means ‘could.’

Form

Add -ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam to the infinitive: viajar → viajaria, viajaríamos. Common irregular forms include fazer → faria, ter → teria, and dizer → diria.

Usage

• Use gostaria de to express a polite wish or request.
• Use poderia to ask politely whether someone could do something.
• Use the conditional for an imagined outcome, often after a condition introduced by se (‘if’).

Examples

• Eu gostaria de um café, por favor. — I’d like a coffee, please.
• Você poderia me ajudar? — Could you help me?
• Se eu tivesse mais tempo, estudaria português todos os dias. — If I had more time, I’d study Portuguese every day.
• Sem trânsito, chegaríamos mais cedo. — Without traffic, we’d arrive earlier.

Common mistake

❌ Se eu tivesse mais tempo, vou estudar português todos os dias.

✅ Se eu tivesse mais tempo, estudaria português todos os dias.

When the outcome depends on an imagined situation, use the conditional estudaria (‘would study’) instead of vou estudar (‘I’m going to study’).

Remember

For imagined outcomes, think ‘would’ + verb; for polite requests, think ‘would like’ or ‘could.’