Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitaria todo domingo; eu visitaria também nossa avó.

If my sister lived here, I would visit her every Sunday; I would also visit our grandmother.

Breakdown of Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitaria todo domingo; eu visitaria também nossa avó.

• eu: I
• morar: to live
• todo: every
• minha: my
• nossa: our
• se: if
• aqui: here
• também: also
• visitar: to visit
• a avó: the grandmother
• a irmã: the sister
• a: her
• o domingo: the Sunday

Questions & Answers about Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitaria todo domingo; eu visitaria também nossa avó.

What is morasse (tense and mood), and why is it used after se here?

Morasse is the imperfect subjunctive of morar (to live).

In Portuguese, hypothetical or unreal conditions in the present/future often use this pattern:

• Se
  • imperfect subjunctive
• conditional (in the main clause)

So:

• Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitaria todo domingo.
  = If my sister lived here (but she doesn’t), I would visit her every Sunday.

This is the standard structure for unreal/hypothetical situations in Portuguese, similar to English If + past, would + verb:

• If she lived here, I would visit her.
• Se ela morasse aqui, eu a visitaria.

How is the form morasse built from the verb morar?

To form the imperfect subjunctive in Portuguese, you start from the 3rd person plural of the preterite (simple past) and change the ending.

1. Take eles moraram (they lived).
2. Remove -am → morar-.
3. Add imperfect subjunctive endings: -sse, -sse, -ssemos, -ssem.

So you get:

• se eu morasse
• se tu morasses
• se ele/ela morasse
• se nós morássemos
• se eles/elas morassem

In the sentence, minha irmã is 3rd person singular, so you use morasse.

Why is it eu a visitaria instead of eu visitaria ela?

Both are possible in Brazilian Portuguese, but they differ in register and style:

• Eu a visitaria todo domingo.
  More formal / written style. Uses the clitic object pronoun a before the verb to mean her.

• Eu visitaria ela todo domingo.
  Very common in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Uses the strong pronoun ela after the verb as the object.

In traditional grammar, eu a visitaria is considered more correct, especially in writing.
In everyday conversation, eu visitaria ela is extremely common and completely natural.

What does the pronoun a refer to, and why is it a (not o, lhe, etc.)?

The a in eu a visitaria is a direct object pronoun that means her. It refers back to minha irmã.

In Portuguese:

• o = him / it (masculine singular)
• a = her / it (feminine singular)
• os = them (masculine plural)
• as = them (feminine plural)

So:

• Eu o visitaria. – I would visit him (or it, masculine noun).
• Eu a visitaria. – I would visit her (or it, feminine noun).

Lhe is usually an indirect object pronoun (to him/her), so you wouldn’t use it with visitar, which normally takes a direct object:

• ✗ Eu lhe visitaria. (considered incorrect in standard grammar)
• ✓ Eu a visitaria. / Eu visitaria ela.

Where else could I put the object pronoun in this sentence? Is visitá-la possible?

Yes, there are a few possibilities, especially in more formal Portuguese:

1. Proclisis (pronoun before the verb) – most common in Brazilian Portuguese:

   • Eu a visitaria todo domingo.

2. Enclisis (pronoun after the verb) – more formal/literary, more common in European Portuguese:

   • Eu visitá-la-ia todo domingo. (very formal and rare in Brazil today)
   • With simple tenses in Brazil, people might write things like visitar-me, ajudá-lo, etc., but with -ria forms (visitaria) this sounds archaic.

Because visitaria is already a synthetic conditional form, visitá-la-ia feels extremely formal and old-fashioned in Brazilian Portuguese.

Natural Brazilian options you’d actually hear:

• Eu a visitaria todo domingo. (formal / neutral)
• Eu visitaria ela todo domingo. (very common in speech)
• Eu visitaria minha irmã todo domingo. (avoid pronoun altogether)

Why is visitaria used and not a periphrastic form like iria visitar?

Portuguese often uses the simple -ria conditional form where English uses would:

• Eu a visitaria todo domingo.
  = I would visit her every Sunday.

You can also say:

• Eu iria visitá-la todo domingo. – I would go to visit her every Sunday.
• Eu iria visitá-la todo domingo can have a bit more emphasis on the idea of going (movement), but often it’s just another way to say a conditional.

In many contexts, visitaria and iria visitar overlap.
Here, visitaria is perfectly natural, concise, and standard.

Could the sentence be Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitava todo domingo? Is that wrong?

It’s not wrong, and it’s actually very common in spoken Brazilian Portuguese.

• Eu a visitaria todo domingo.
  → standard conditional form.

• Eu a visitava todo domingo.
  → formally, this is the imperfect indicative, which usually means a repeated action in the past (I used to visit her).
  But in Brazilian Portuguese speech, people often use visitava instead of visitaria to express a hypothetical or polite sense, especially after se

  • imperfect subjunctive.

So:

• Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitava todo domingo.
  is very natural in everyday speech, even if grammar books prefer visitária in this hypothetical pattern.

Why is it todo domingo and not todos domingos or todos os domingos?

All of these forms are possible, with small differences in style:

• todo domingo – very common, neutral:

  • I would visit her every Sunday.

• todos os domingos – slightly more explicit/emphatic:

  • literally: all the Sundays → also every Sunday.

• todos domingos – possible, but much less common; sounds a bit off or dialectal in many regions.

So you could say:

• Eu a visitaria todo domingo.
• Eu a visitaria todos os domingos.

In most everyday Brazilian speech, todo domingo is the most natural here.

Why is it todo domingo and not toda domingo?

Because domingo (Sunday) is masculine in Portuguese:

• o domingo – the Sunday
• todo domingo – every Sunday

Other days are also masculine:

• toda segunda-feira (Monday) – here segunda-feira is feminine.
• toda sexta-feira (Friday) – feminine.
• todo sábado (Saturday) – masculine.

So:

• todo domingo (masc. noun)
• toda segunda(-feira) (fem. noun)

Why is nossa avó used instead of minha avó?

Both are grammatically correct; the choice changes who is included:

• minha avó – my grandmother (from my point of view; could be only mine, or I’m just not emphasizing the other person’s relation).
• nossa avó – our grandmother (shared by the speaker and at least one other person in the context).

In this sentence, minha irmã and the speaker probably share the same grandmother, so it makes sense to say nossa avó (our grandmother). It highlights that she belongs to both of them.

Do we need an article before the possessives? Could it be Se a minha irmã morasse aqui… or …também a nossa avó?

In Brazilian Portuguese, using the definite article before possessives (meu, minha, nosso, nossa etc.) is optional in most cases and varies by region and style.

All of these are possible:

• Se minha irmã morasse aqui…

• Se a minha irmã morasse aqui…

• …nossa avó.
• …a nossa avó.

General tendencies:

• Many Brazilians omit the article in everyday speech: minha irmã, meu pai.
• Using the article (a minha irmã, o meu pai) can sound a bit more emphatic or, in some regions, more formal or European.

In European Portuguese, the article is almost always required: a minha irmã, a nossa avó.

Is there any difference between eu visitaria também nossa avó and eu também visitaria nossa avó?

Both are correct; the difference is mostly in focus:

• Eu visitaria também nossa avó.
  Focuses more on what else you would do:

  • I would visit her, and I would also visit our grandmother.

• Eu também visitaria nossa avó.
  Can sound like:

  • I would also visit our grandmother (maybe in contrast to someone who wouldn’t),
    or simply a more neutral I would also visit our grandmother.

In context, both will usually be understood the same way, and Brazilians freely move também around:

• Eu também visitaria nossa avó.
• Eu visitaria nossa avó também.
• Eu visitaria também nossa avó.

Word order with também is flexible; small differences are more about emphasis than grammar.

Why doesn’t morasse change for feminine (irmã) or masculine (irmão)? Should it be different?

In Portuguese, verbs do not change for gender, only for person and number.

So:

• Se meu irmão morasse aqui, eu o visitaria…
• Se minha irmã morasse aqui, eu a visitaria…

In both cases you use morasse (3rd person singular, imperfect subjunctive).
The verb doesn’t care if the subject is masculine or feminine; it only agrees in person/number (he/she/they), not in gender.

Gender shows up in nouns, adjectives, and some pronouns, not in verb endings.