Word
Se eu tivesse ido à dentista na semana passada, não teria passado a noite com o lábio inchado.
Meaning
If I had gone to the dentist last week, I would not have spent the night with a swollen lip.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of Se eu tivesse ido à dentista na semana passada, não teria passado a noite com o lábio inchado.
eu
I
não
not
ter
to have
com
with
Questions & Answers about Se eu tivesse ido à dentista na semana passada, não teria passado a noite com o lábio inchado.
What kind of conditional sentence is this?
This is a past unreal conditional, often called the third conditional in English-style grammar explanations.
Its basic pattern in Portuguese is:
Se + past perfect subjunctive, conditional perfect
So here we have:
It describes something that did not happen in the past, and an imagined result that also did not happen the way the speaker wishes it had.
Why is the first verb phrase tivesse ido?
Tivesse ido is the past perfect subjunctive of ir in a compound form.
It is built with:
- tivesse = imperfect subjunctive of ter
- ido = past participle of ir
So:
- ter ido = to have gone
- tivesse ido = had gone
Portuguese uses this form after se when talking about a hypothetical past situation:
- Se eu tivesse estudado...
- Se ela tivesse chegado mais cedo...
In this sentence, tivesse ido shows an unreal past action: the speaker did not go to the dentist.