Wish Sentences (Oxalá, Quem me dera)

A wish sentence (frase optativa) expresses a desire, a yearning, or a regret about something that is, was, or might have been otherwise. English leans heavily on the verb wish (I wish I could fly) and the modal hopefully. Portuguese has a much richer toolkit: the exclamation oxalá, the idiomatic quem me dera, the regional tomara, and the workhorse gostava que. Each selects a specific subjunctive tense, and each sits in a slightly different corner of the language's emotional palette.

This page walks through the main wish constructions, the subjunctive forms they take, and the subtle differences in tone and register between them. Get a feel for these and you'll sound far more idiomatic than a learner who defaults to espero que for every wish.

Oxalá — "would that, I hope, if only"

Oxalá is a pure optative particle. It comes at the front of a sentence, takes a subjunctive verb directly (no que is needed), and expresses a genuine wish. The word itself is an Arabic loan — from in šā' Allāh ("if God wills"), the same expression that gave English inshallah — one of the Arabic elements that entered Portuguese during the centuries of Al-Andalus. Other languages got similar borrowings (Spanish ojalá, Ladino ojalá), but Portuguese kept it especially productive.

The tense of the subjunctive after oxalá is determined by when the wished-for event is located in time:

The shift from present subjunctive (chova) to imperfect subjunctive (chovesse) is the same shift that distinguishes "I hope it rains tomorrow" from "I wish it would rain tomorrow." The first treats the wish as plausible; the second marks it as distant or unlikely.

Oxalá with or without the pronoun

The subject of the subjunctive clause can be explicit or implicit. Portuguese is pro-drop, and wish sentences follow that pattern.

Quem me dera — "if only, how I wish"

Quem me dera is one of those phrases that no literal translation captures. Morphologically it's quem (who) + me (to me) + dera (would give — pluperfect indicative of dar). Historically it meant "who would give to me...", but in modern Portuguese it has fossilized into a pure optative expression meaning roughly "if only" or "how I wish."

It comes in two constructions, which differ in meaning.

Quem me dera + infinitive

When the wish is about the speaker doing or being something, quem me dera takes an infinitive directly.

This construction expresses a personal yearning — almost always tinged with some regret or impossibility. The infinitive form makes clear that the subject of the wished-for action is the speaker.

Quem me dera que + imperfect subjunctive

When the wish is about something someone else does or experiences, quem me dera takes que + imperfect subjunctive (or pluperfect subjunctive for past counterfactuals).

Quem dera, quem te dera, quem lhes dera

The indirect object pronoun can change to match whoever is doing the wishing. These variants are productive in European Portuguese and sound completely natural.

These are a bit literary-feeling but fully alive in spoken EP — you'll hear them on television dramas and in everyday sighs of envy.

Gostava que + imperfect subjunctive — the colloquial default

The construction that does the most everyday work in European Portuguese isn't oxalá or quem me dera — it's gostava que + imperfect subjunctive. Gostava is the imperfect indicative of gostar, used idiomatically as a "soft" conditional ("I would like"). Followed by que and a subjunctive, it forms the most natural way to express a wish in ordinary conversation.

Compare gostaria que, the full conditional form: grammatically correct but perceptibly more formal. In speech, gostava que is the unmarked choice. In writing, gostaria que is the safer bet.

Gostava vs. queria — polite wish

Queria que + imperfect subjunctive is also common, slightly more direct:

Tomara (que) — regional and reduced in PT-PT

The expression tomara que — meaning something like "I hope" or "if only" — is widely used in Brazilian Portuguese. In European Portuguese, it exists but is much less common and feels slightly old-fashioned or regional (you'll hear it mostly in older speakers or in set phrases). In PT-PT, oxalá and gostava que do most of the work that tomara que does in Brazil.

You'll encounter tomara most often in the reduced standalone exclamation Tomara!, which means something like "I wish!" or "I'd love that!" — a short reply to an appealing suggestion.

Só quero que — the minimal wish

When you want to express that you want only one specific thing — often in a slightly pleading or frustrated tone — Portuguese uses só quero que + present subjunctive.

Like gostava que, só queria que shifts to imperfect subjunctive in the embedded clause and sounds softer and more wistful than só quero que.

Se ao menos — "if at least, if only"

Se ao menos introduces a wish-tinged conditional — the speaker acknowledges the condition isn't met, but expresses what would be enough to satisfy them if it were.

This is a fragment-style construction — it can stand alone as a wistful lament, without a main clause. In that use, the speaker is leaving the consequence implicit: "...then everything would be fine" is the unspoken tail.

Perfect subjunctive after oxalá — the "I hope it has happened" wish

When your wish is about whether something has already happened — you don't know yet, but you hope — Portuguese uses oxalá + perfect subjunctive (tenha + particípio).

This distinguishes Portuguese from English: we use "I hope + past tense" for this (I hope he arrived safely), whereas Portuguese marks the completed-but-unknown status explicitly through the perfect subjunctive.

Register: which wish form for which situation

Cultural note

Oxalá carries the imprint of Portugal's eight centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking populations. When you say oxalá, you are invoking — etymologically — the name of God (Allāh). Modern speakers don't feel this consciously, but the word is a living trace of a long cultural interweaving. Hearing it in casual speech from an atheist and a devout Catholic alike is a reminder of how languages absorb history and carry it forward.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

1. Oxalá is a pure optative particle — no que needed. Its subjunctive tense depends on when the wished-for event is located in time.
2. Quem me dera splits into two constructions:
   • infinitive
   for wishes about oneself,
   • que + imperfect subjunctive
   for wishes about others.
3. Gostava que
   • imperfect subjunctive is the everyday workhorse in colloquial PT-PT. Gostaria que is its formal cousin.
4. Tomara que is rare in PT-PT; prefer oxalá or gostava que.
5. Se ao menos introduces a wistful fragment-style wish; it pairs with the imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive.
6. For "I hope (it has) happened" wishes, use oxalá + tenha + particípio.
7. Never mix indicative into a wish clause — the subjunctive is non-negotiable.