Irregular Conditional Forms | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

The conditional is one of the most regular tenses in all of Portuguese. Famously difficult verbs like ser, ir, ter, estar, poder, saber, pôr, vir, and haver — all of which are wildly unpredictable in the present or the preterite — behave perfectly regularly in the conditional. There is no special list of irregulars to memorize for most of these verbs. You simply take their infinitive and attach the conditional endings.

The exception is a small, closed set of three verbs that contract their infinitive before the endings. They are the same three that are irregular in the simple future, and they share the exact same irregular stems.

The only three irregular verbs

Infinitive	Stem	eu	tu	ele	nós	vós	eles
dizer	dir-	diria	dirias	diria	diríamos	diríeis	diriam
fazer	far-	faria	farias	faria	faríamos	faríeis	fariam
trazer	trar-	traria	trarias	traria	traríamos	traríeis	trariam

These three verbs drop the middle syllable of the infinitive (dizer → dir-, fazer → far-, trazer → trar-) and then attach the normal conditional endings. The result is just as predictable as the regular pattern, once you know the stem.

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Memorize the three stems as a single set: dir-, far-, trar-. They work identically in the conditional and the future, so one act of memorization covers both tenses.

Dizer in the conditional

Eu diria a verdade, mas ninguém quer ouvi-la.

I would tell the truth, but no one wants to hear it.

Tu dirias o mesmo que eu se estivesses lá.

You would say the same thing as me if you'd been there.

Diríamos que o plano está a correr bem, mas falta ainda a fase final.

We would say the plan is going well, but the final phase is still to come.

Os críticos diriam que o filme é pretensioso — eu acho que é genial.

The critics would say the film is pretentious — I think it's brilliant.

Verbs derived from dizer inherit the same irregularity: desdizer → desdiria, contradizer → contradiria, predizer → prediria, bendizer → bendiria, maldizer → maldiria.

Fazer in the conditional

Eu faria tudo por ele, e ele sabe disso.

I would do anything for him, and he knows it.

O que farias no meu lugar?

What would you do in my place?

Faríamos uma festa maior, mas a casa não dá para mais gente.

We would throw a bigger party, but the house doesn't fit more people.

Eles fariam qualquer coisa para evitar o trânsito da tarde.

They would do anything to avoid the afternoon traffic.

Derivatives of fazer follow the same pattern: desfazer → desfaria, refazer → refaria, satisfazer → satisfaria, contrafazer → contrafaria.

Trazer in the conditional

Traria vinho para o jantar, mas esqueci-me na loja.

I would bring wine for dinner, but I forgot it at the shop.

Trarias um bolo da pastelaria da esquina quando vieres?

Would you bring a cake from the corner bakery when you come?

Traríamos mais convidados, mas a sala é pequena.

We would bring more guests, but the room is small.

Se soubesse do que gostavas, trazia-te um presente de Lisboa.

If I'd known what you liked, I would bring you a gift from Lisbon.

Trazer has no common derivatives in everyday Portuguese, so these forms are essentially the complete family.

Why these three, and no others

The contraction is a historical accident. In Old Portuguese, the future and conditional were formed by fusing an infinitive with forms of haver — falar + hei gave falarei, and falar + ia gave falaria. For three particularly frequent verbs, this fusion triggered a phonetic reduction inside the word itself: dizer + ia naturally contracted to diria, fazer + ia to faria, trazer + ia to traria. No other Portuguese verb went through that reduction. Every other irregular verb kept its full infinitive as the base for the future and conditional, which is why they behave so well in these two tenses.

This means that verbs that English speakers might expect to be irregular in the conditional — ser, ter, ir, estar, pôr, vir, poder, querer, saber, haver — are all perfectly regular:

Infinitive	eu-form	Meaning
ser	seria	would be
ter	teria	would have
ir	iria	would go
estar	estaria	would be (state)
pôr	poria	would put
vir	viria	would come
poder	poderia	would be able to / could
querer	quereria	would want
saber	saberia	would know
haver	haveria	there would be

Seria bom fazermos uma pausa agora.

It would be good for us to take a break now.

Teria mais paciência se tivesse dormido melhor.

I would have more patience if I had slept better.

Iríamos ao concerto, mas as coisas complicaram-se.

We would go to the concert, but things got complicated.

Eles poderiam ajudar-nos, se quisessem.

They could help us, if they wanted to.

Haveria uma forma de resolver isto, tenho a certeza.

There would be a way to resolve this, I'm sure.

Notice that poderia is from poder, regularly poder + ia = poderia — no stem change. The same is true of saberia, quereria, haveria, veria. None of these are irregular.

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A common learner reflex is to "make irregular" any verb that looks irregular in other tenses. Resist the urge. Ser gives seria, not *sria. Ter gives teria, not *tria. Ver gives veria, not *vria. If it is not dizer, fazer, or trazer, it is regular.

Side-by-side: future vs. conditional

Because dir-, far-, trar- are shared between the future and the conditional, the paradigms are mirror images of each other. Only the endings differ:

	dizer (future)	dizer (conditional)
eu	direi	diria
tu	dirás	dirias
ele	dirá	diria
nós	diremos	diríamos
eles	dirão	diriam

	fazer (future)	fazer (conditional)
eu	farei	faria
tu	farás	farias
ele	fará	faria
nós	faremos	faríamos
eles	farão	fariam

	trazer (future)	trazer (conditional)
eu	trarei	traria
tu	trarás	trarias
ele	trará	traria
nós	traremos	traríamos
eles	trarão	trariam

Amanhã dir-te-ei tudo, mas hoje não te diria nada — a noite está para festejar.

Tomorrow I'll tell you everything, but today I wouldn't tell you anything — tonight is for celebrating.

Mesoclisis in the irregular conditionals

Like their regular cousins, these three verbs also take mesoclisis when an object pronoun is present in a neutral affirmative clause. The clitic wedges between the irregular stem and the ending:

Dir-te-ia a verdade, se achasse que estás preparado.

I would tell you the truth, if I thought you were ready.

Far-nos-ia um grande favor se falasse com ele.

You would do us a great favor if you spoke to him.

Trar-vos-íamos notícias assim que soubéssemos de alguma coisa.

We would bring you news as soon as we knew anything.

The structure is irregular stem + clitic + ending: dir- + te + ia, far- + nos + ia, trar- + vos + íamos. As with all mesoclisis, this is formal/literary and almost never spoken in casual conversation — see Mesoclisis for the full picture.

When a proclisis trigger is present (negation, subordinator, certain adverbs), the pronoun moves before the verb and the word re-fuses:

Não te diria nada se não confiasse em ti.

I wouldn't tell you anything if I didn't trust you.

Sei que me faria o favor sem hesitar.

I know she would do me the favor without hesitation.

Nunca nos trariam más notícias assim tão tarde.

They would never bring us bad news this late.

Comparison with English

English has no equivalent of this stem contraction. Would say, would do, would bring are straightforward compounds of would plus the bare verb. Portuguese, by contrast, fuses the two into a single word and for three specific verbs chops syllables out of the middle. The result is that diria sounds nothing like dizer at first — the connection becomes obvious only when you see the list alongside dizer/direi/diria.

This is why memorizing dir-, far-, trar- as a three-item mnemonic pays off so well. Once you own those three stems, you own the entire irregular conditional, and a large part of the irregular future as well.

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A memorable native-speaker test: can you rhyme diria, faria, traria? Yes — all three end in exactly the same way, because the endings are regular. The trick is remembering to drop -ze- or -a- from the infinitive before applying them.

Common Mistakes

❌ Eu dizeria a verdade.

Incorrect — used the full infinitive *dizer* instead of the contracted stem *dir-*.

✅ Eu diria a verdade.

I would tell the truth.

Dizer is one of the three verbs that must contract to dir- in the future and conditional. Dizeria is not Portuguese.

❌ Ele fazeria o jantar.

Incorrect — same problem with *fazer*.

✅ Ele faria o jantar.

He would make dinner.

The stem is far-, not faze-. This error is extremely common with beginners who are applying the regular rule too literally.

❌ Eu sria feliz se morasse no Porto.

Incorrect — invented an irregular stem for *ser*.

✅ Eu seria feliz se morasse no Porto.

I would be happy if I lived in Porto.

Ser is regular in the conditional. The full infinitive ser + -ia gives seria. Do not invent contractions for verbs that do not have them.

❌ Teria muitos amigos lá, mas tria de aprender o dialecto.

Incorrect — tried to contract *ter* by analogy.

✅ Teria muitos amigos lá, mas teria de aprender o dialecto.

I would have many friends there, but I would have to learn the dialect.

Ter is regular: ter + -ia = teria. Resist the urge to drop syllables. The irregular set contains only three members.

❌ Vria contigo de bom grado, mas tenho de trabalhar.

Incorrect — *vir* is also regular.

✅ Viria contigo de bom grado, mas tenho de trabalhar.

I would gladly come with you, but I have to work.

Vir is regular in the future and conditional (virei, viria). Only dizer, fazer, trazer contract.

❌ Não dir-te-ia nada.

Incorrect — mesoclisis after a proclisis trigger.

✅ Não te diria nada.

I wouldn't tell you anything.

Even in the irregular forms, mesoclisis and proclisis triggers cannot coexist. The negation não forces the pronoun before the verb and the word recombines into a single unit: diria.

Key takeaways

Only three irregulars: dizer → dir-, fazer → far-, trazer → trar-. All the conditional endings attach to these contracted stems.
Their derivatives (desdizer, refazer, contradizer, satisfazer) inherit the irregularity.
Every other verb, however irregular elsewhere, is regular in the conditional: ser → seria, ter → teria, ir → iria, poder → poderia, saber → saberia, ver → veria, vir → viria, estar → estaria, pôr → poria, haver → haveria, querer → quereria.
These same three stems are also the only irregulars in the simple future: direi/diria, farei/faria, trarei/traria.
Mesoclisis still applies to the irregulars: dir-te-ia, far-nos-ia, trar-vos-íamos — but any proclisis trigger cancels it.
Do not invent irregular stems. If you are tempted to write *seria → sria or *teria → tria, stop — the full infinitive is the correct base.