Se a empresa cancelar o voo de manhã, a passageira vai recusar a diária do hotel e voltar para casa.

If the company cancels the flight in the morning, the female passenger will refuse the hotel daily rate and return home.

Breakdown of Se a empresa cancelar o voo de manhã, a passageira vai recusar a diária do hotel e voltar para casa.

• a casa: the house
• para: to
• e: and
• ir: to go (future auxiliary)

Questions & Answers about Se a empresa cancelar o voo de manhã, a passageira vai recusar a diária do hotel e voltar para casa.

Why is cancelar used after se? Why not cancela or cancelará?

After se meaning if, Portuguese often uses the future subjunctive when talking about a possible future situation.

So:

• Se a empresa cancelar o voo... = If the company cancels the flight...

This is the normal structure for a real future possibility.

Why not the others?

• se cancela would sound like a habitual or more general situation, like if it usually cancels
• se cancelará is not used here; Portuguese does not normally use the future indicative after se in this type of conditional clause

A useful thing to know: for many -ar verbs, the future subjunctive looks exactly like the infinitive. So cancelar here is not the plain infinitive in function, even though it looks the same.

Is vai recusar just a future tense? Why not recusará?

Yes. Vai recusar is a very common way to express the future in Brazilian Portuguese.

It is the structure:

• ir + infinitive

So:

• vai recusar = will refuse / is going to refuse

You could also say:

• a passageira recusará a diária do hotel

That is the simple future, and it is grammatically correct. But in Brazil, vai + infinitive is usually more natural in everyday speech and very common in writing too.

So:

• vai recusar = more conversational and common
• recusará = more formal or literary