Wishes and recommendations in Brazilian Portuguese

Level B1

Wishes and recommendations in Brazilian Portuguese

Prepare for a meeting with a colleague: say what you hope for and what matters for it to go well. You will use three verb forms in a short exchange, then combine a wish, a recommendation and a reason in your own message.

Facts and opinions you already know

A reunião é amanhã means “The meeting is tomorrow”: a is “the”, reunião is “meeting”, é comes from ser (be), and amanhã is “tomorrow”. Eu tenho uma lista means “I have a list”: eu is “I”, tenho comes from ter (have), and uma lista is “a list”. Fazer is “make/do”; the past forms fiz and fez mean “I made/did” and “you/he/she made/did”, but here you need a desired result instead of a past event. Acho que means “I think”; in Acho que a reunião é útil, útil means “useful”, and the speaker offers an opinion with the familiar é.

Words for preparing the meeting

Here esperar means “hope”, wanting a result without claiming it will happen; it does not mean waiting in this use. Espero is “I hope”, and you can leave out eu because espero identifies the speaker. Importante means “important”; the feminine nouns are a reunião (the meeting) and uma lista (a list).

A colleague wants a useful meeting

The meeting is tomorrow, so one colleague hopes it will be useful and the other recommends making a list. The reply says that the list is already available; it does not claim the meeting has happened. Listen to the exchange and identify the hope, the recommendation and the factual answer.

A hoped-for result

Espero que introduces what you want to happen: “I hope that…”. In these examples, ser becomes seja, ter becomes tenha, and fazer becomes faça; these are present subjunctive forms, not the familiar é, tem and faz. A reunião uses seja, and você uses tenha or faça here; keep the person or thing after que so the listener knows whose result you mean. Seja is the meeting being useful, tenha is having a list, and faça is making one. English may keep an ordinary present or use will after hope, but Portuguese uses these subjunctive forms in the constructions shown.

Espero que resultado desejado

Say what matters for the result

É importante que means “It is important that…”: you evaluate a result or recommend it, rather than report that it is already true. Keep É importante at the start, then use the same seja, tenha or faça after que in these examples. Compare “having a list” (tenha uma lista) with “making a list” (faça uma lista): possession and preparation are different results. The choice is not caused by que alone: Acho que a reunião é útil has que too, but presents an opinion with é.

É importante que resultado importante

Your message for another meeting

A different colleague is preparing a meeting for tomorrow and has not made a list yet. Before opening the model, write two connected sentences: hope the meeting will be useful, recommend making a list, and give the reason that the meeting is tomorrow. You already have every word; porque means “because”. Then read and listen to the model, and change the wish to “I hope you have a list”, keeping the recommendation and reason.

Choose the meaning, then the form

Acho que a reunião é útil gives your opinion; Espero que a reunião seja útil expresses your desired outcome. To recommend a result, start with É importante que and use seja, tenha or faça as practised. These three irregular forms are enough for this task; you do not need a full verb table or a rule for every use of que.

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