"Eu pensei que talvez eu achasse você aqui."
Translation:I thought that maybe I would find you here.
34 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
How do we know to to use "would". This seems to be subjunctive+conditional+past!!
For me would is Futuro do Pretérito in Portuguese (compraria, beberíamos, sorririam, etc.). Other tenses are, sometimes, just translated as Simple Past in English. (Especially in conditional tense)
Acredito que o "talvez" sempre exige o subjuntivo quando precede o verbo: "talvez achasse".
That captures the meaning and is perfectly good English. Should be accepted.
If you use the optional conjunction, it goes next to the verb in standard English syntax. "I thought that [perhaps] I would find you here."
I'm confused. Why is "would find" subjunctive rather than conditional in Spanish?
"Talvez" triggers the subjunctive when it precedes the verb. Achasse translates to "would find". There's an implication that the speaker was mistaken about what he thought to be true.
Although the Portuguese sentence is in the subjunctive, the English translation is not.
818
"I thought that maybe I might find you here" is good English, and keeps the flavour of the Portuguese subjunctive. I'm a native English-speaker, but this "might" might be a bit old-fashioned now.
Not at all old-fashioned... and thank you for knowing the difference between"may" and "might".
Does anyone have a trick to remember that talvez means maybe? I keep thinking that it means sometimes!
Very confused, it is more simple (I thought that maybe I would find you here.) = (Eu pensei que talvez eu encontraria você aqui)
- 1451
Eu pensei que talvez eu ENCONTRASSE você aqui, a palavra "achasse", é utilizada mais no sentido de "achar" alguém, ou alguma coisa, que estava escondido. IMHO .
- 1451
For example! No Brasil dir-se-ia esconde-esconde, em Portugal, jogar ás escondidas. Por exemplo: eu achei uma carteira que alguém perdeu.--- Eu encontrei um amigo que não via há muitos anos.
The sense of this in English is much more like finding someone (as if they were an object) than meeting someone. 'I thought I would meet you here' has a different sense - to me, this is where encontrar would be appropriate. Not sure if that's helpful!
As a native english speaker i can only say it sounds really really odd. I dont know of its grammatically wrong, but it sounds quite awkward.
For those who may be curious: "I thought I might find you here(and how about that, I did...)." And, "I thought I would find you here(but I didnt; you were over there)." In these cases (notice the emphasis) you can use might/would interchangeably.
But look at another case: "I thought I might find you here(but I wasn't confident)." And, "I thought I would find you here(really, I did, thats why I looked)." In these examples, because the emphasis is on the words themselves, they have very different meanings, and are not interchangeable.
After a past-tense verb in the main clause, you should use "would" in the clause that follows.
I think I will find...
I thought I would find...
Only if you kind of pause before the "maybe", for emphasis. "I thought that (maybe) I would find you here....maybe." The maybe in the middle of the sentence is very natural, and the best placement, but if you were speaking amd i kind of forgot that maybe, then i would pause and add a strongly emphasized MAYBE.
Why does it mark '.....that I would maybe find. ..' wrong? I'm a native English speaker (UK) and to me that sounds just as correct as '...that maybe I would find ...'.
Interesting. Normally, adverbs of certainty follow this rule: they are placed between the auxiliary verb and the principal verb:
• They will certainly arrive late tonight because of snow.
• He has definitely achieved success in all his endeavors.
The exception to this rule is with "perhaps" and "maybe." It's not grammatically incorrect to use "maybe" as you have done, but it's less usual stylistically. It sounds a bit "off".
I thought that perhaps/maybe I would find...
http://perfectourenglish.blogspot.com/2016/05/adverbs-of-certainty.html
I agree with RichardSpe847262 and find his sentence acceptable in American English, as well.
English is also a foreign language for me, so I am very grateful for your helpful comments.
Would be: I thought that maybe" I found you here" which is the construction used in other examples, acceptable? I'm writing this after my previous post so you may better understand my confusion. Again many Thanks!
ONCE AGAIN, THE COMPUTER SAID MY ANSWER WAS WRONG BEFORE I HAD WRITTEN IT. (THIS IS HAPPENING QUITE OFTEN)
i thought that I perhaps would find you here is the same as the answer above. it should be accepted.
