"Eu pensei que você fosse um médico."

Translation: I thought that you were a doctor.

[GuilleGiovagnoli]

wouldn't the most accurate translation for "i thought you were a doctor" be "eu pensei que voce era um médico"? Wouldn't "fosse" be more like "i thought you would be a doctor"? I've seen this in other sentences too, as well as using words with -sse when the termination -ria sounds more obvious...

[TiagoMoita_PT]

Both are correct, in my opinion. Well, it all depends on the context, which is always absent in these sentences. I think if the person is talking about the remote past, than he would more likely use "era".
Also, "fosse" sounds more formal to me.

[antlane]

"era" is spoken language; 'que você ...' is a subordinated sentence, it requires a subjunctive verb. Eu pensei que você viesse ( I thought that you would come***) , in spoken language - Eu pensei que você vinha. I thought you would be a doctor = Eu pensei que você seria um médico ( que você se tornaria um médico)

[deactivated user]

Eu pensei que você viesse. = I thought that you would come [but you didn't].

[antlane]

editei E. (***) thanks

[TygerK]

How do you say, "I thought that you WOULD BE a doctor." (Describing to a person your guess about what job you thought the person would grow up to be.)

'Eu pensei que você SERIA um médico'

Is that correct?

[TygerK]

antlane just answered my question above:

"I thought you would be a doctor = Eu pensei que você seria um médico ( que você se tornaria um médico)"

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

[Frencesca]

I'm slowly becoming frustrated with past tense conjugations: foi is both went (to go) and were (to be) and I don't get why fosse is also were.

[Pantodynamos]

http://www.conjuga-me.net/verbo-ser

[Squonkalini]

Does this imply that the person is in fact not a doctor?

[deactivated user]

He may not be a doctor. The use of the Portuguese subjunctive can imply that what you thought to be true at the time was mistaken.

[Squonkalini]

Thanks, emeyr!

[asherbennaphtali]

I thought indefinite articles were not used with "ser" when describing someone's profession.

So why doesn't the Portuguese say "... que você fosse médico"?

[MurilloKubinhetz]

I'm brazilian, why do we use were instead of was in this one?

[antlane]

http://pt.bab.la/verbo/ingles/be, mas, de qualquer forma, aqui é subjuntivo e, no subjuntivo, todas as pessoas são were

[PaulAbraha11]

It's subjunctive here in Portuguese but not in English. You would not say "i thought he were a doctor". The reason for "were" here is simply that that is the second person form of the past tense, whatever mood (to be being somewhat irregular).

[ElaineBray]

The accents are too small for me to see so i can only make slow progress with them