Imagined situations in Portuguese: se eu tivesse and se fosse
A course interests you, but time and price get in the way. Learn to imagine a change and explain its consequence in two connected personal conditions.
Recover the verbs and the course words
Ter means have, ser means be, poder means can or be able to, fazer means do, and estudar means study. Recover tenho (I have) and é (is), then poderia (I could) and faria (I would do): the last two consider an alternative rather than state a firm plan. When an action verb follows poderia, it stays in its infinitive form, as in poderia fazer; faria already contains the meaning would do.
Um curso is a course, o curso is the particular course already in view; fazer um curso means take a course. Caro means expensive, barato means cheap, em casa means at home and de manhã means in the morning. Curso is masculine, so the price words here end in -o.
The facts before the imagined change
Read the two lines as one short self-assessment by someone considering a course: today I have no time to take it, and it is expensive. Hoje means today, eu means I, não makes tenho negative, tempo means time, and para fazer means to do or take, expressing the purpose here. Listen before continuing: the speaker has two obstacles, not a completed decision to enrol.
Hoje eu não tenho tempo para fazer o curso.
O curso é caro.
Imagine having more time
Se eu tivesse mais tempo means if I had more time: se introduces the condition and mais tempo means more time. Ter changes to tivesse, an irregular imperfect subjunctive form; here eu tivesse is imagined having now or in the future, not a report of having had time in the past. Do not form it by adding -sse to ter: learn tivesse as the form used here.
Poderia fazer o curso means I could take the course, the possible consequence of that imagined change. Compare the fact não tenho tempo with the alternative se eu tivesse mais tempo; after poderia, fazer stays infinitive. English also uses a past-shaped form in if I had, but neither sentence here describes a finished past event.
Se eu tivesse …, poderia …
Se eu tivesse mais tempo, poderia fazer o curso.
Imagine a cheaper course
Se fosse barato means if it were cheap: fosse comes from ser and is another irregular imperfect subjunctive form, not the present é. The unspoken subject of fosse is o curso, already named; it is not eu just because the second half says eu faria. With these singular subjects, eu fosse and o curso fosse have the same verb shape.
Eu faria o curso means I would take the course, a personal choice under that condition. Contrast caro, the stated price, with barato, the imagined one; this gives your second personal condition, about price rather than available time. Learn ser → fosse and ter → tivesse separately, without treating -sse as an ending to attach directly to either infinitive.
Se fosse …, eu faria …
Se fosse barato, eu faria o curso.
Possible, desired or imagined?
For comparison only, se eu tiver tempo means if I have time, presenting a future condition as open; se eu tivesse mais tempo imagines a different situation with more time. Espero que tenha tempo means I hope I have time: espero means I hope, que introduces what is hoped for, and tenha is a present subjunctive form of ter. A hoped-for outcome is not the same thing as an if-condition.
Here practise the imagined viewpoint: se with tivesse or fosse gives the condition, and poderia or faria gives the consequence. These are useful pairings for this task, not a rule about every sentence containing se or que. We are not looking back and changing a completed past event.
Se eu tivesse mais tempo, poderia fazer o curso.
Se fosse barato, eu faria o curso.
Two conditions, then a new choice
First speak as the person in the short text: link two sentences about what more time would make possible and what a cheap price would make you choose. Use Se eu tivesse mais tempo, poderia… and Se fosse barato, eu faria…; check each consequence against its condition, then adapt both to your own life, keeping those two forms.
Transfer the idea: keep the time condition, but change the activity to estudar em casa (study at home). For a separate alternative, imagine that the course is de manhã (in the morning), using Se o curso fosse… and eu faria o curso. This changes the imagined schedule; the original text did not tell us the real schedule. Try before listening to the two possible answers below.
Se eu tivesse mais tempo, poderia estudar em casa.
Se o curso fosse de manhã, eu faria o curso.
A condition and its consequence
Tivesse comes from ter and fosse from ser: in these examples, the imperfect subjunctive imagines a different present or future situation. Poderia fazer says what would become possible; faria says what you would do. Say both personal conditions without reading and check: did you change the time available and the price, while keeping each consequence connected to its condition?
Se eu tivesse mais tempo, poderia fazer o curso.
Se fosse barato, eu faria o curso.