"If he wanted to eat."
Translation:Se ele quisesse comer.
20 Comments
well, the lack of context leaves a doubt for us. "mas você fez fritura para nosso filho?!?" / "ah, se ele quis comer..." that's actually not subjunctive!
Ok, but without a creal context it's hard to get the meaning... so, don't worry...
You're partially correct in that it is an incomplete sentence, however, it is acceptable because this is neither regular conversation nor a formal situation. We're being taught something about this sentence fragment; leaving the period off would be sloppy.
What is the difference between "queira" and "queria"? I keep getting them mixed up
Queria is conditional for first and third person singular (e.g. Ele queria um cachorro (He would like/want a dog)). Queira is subjunctive present for first and third person singular (e.g. Eu tenho medo que ele queira um cachorro (I'm afraid that he wants a dog)).
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Are you sure about this? From what I can make out, both the Conjuga-me and the Verbix sites list 'quereria' as conditional for first and third person singular and 'queria' as imperfect past for the same.
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Olá celanba, tudo bem? There seems to be a lot of support for 'queria' being used as conditional in everyday speech, although I don't think they have changed the conjugation of 'querer' on the sites I mentioned. Maybe Duolingo could indicate sometimes if they are expecting a 'formal' answer (business suit?) or an 'informal' one - (beach clothes?)
That is the future subjunctive which describes a likely specific event in the future (not 100% certain).
Se ele quiser comer, vou preparar um sanduíche para ele.
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I think that the senses are different. 'If he were to want to eat' (imperfect subjunctive) vs. ' If he wanted(discretely, but certainly, in the past) to eat' (preterit). Very difficult distinction that DL does not make.
"If he were to eat" and "If he wanted to eat" both express a hypothetical situation with the first being more unlikely than the second.
Both are translated as "Se ele quisesse comer".
Duolingo doesn't distinguish them, because English doesn't distinguish them (without clarifying remarks such as those that you added). So when you see this clause without context, it could have either meaning.
I believe Duo is correct in the two translations.
1) "se ele quisesse comer" uses the past subjunctive, a tense that is possibly very common in romance languages. It might be as frequently used in English, except it is not obvious. The conjugation for the past subjunctive of "to want" is "wanted" for all persons, i.e., the same as the simple past tense -- except for the verb "to be" which has a mismatch of "were" to certain persons). It is used to express mood of "desire, demand, necessity, recommendation, etc.", and also doubt or a degree of probability.
2) "if he wanted to eat" (as simple past tense) can also be paired with variety of tenses to make conditional or counterfactual statements, which can be rendered in Portuguese as "se ele quis comer..."
I am sad to hear that in Brazil the conditional tense is replaced with the preterite past tense. I think it takes imagination to use the conditional tense, and it should be encouraged. Possible worlds are always fun.
