Breakdown of Quando terminar o trabalho, termino sessão e desligo o portátil.
Questions & Answers about Quando terminar o trabalho, termino sessão e desligo o portátil.
Because Portuguese uses the future subjunctive after time words like quando (when), assim que (as soon as), logo que, and conditionals like se when they refer to an action in the future. Here, the finishing of the work is a future/uncertain event, so you use the future subjunctive: Quando terminar o trabalho…
Future subjunctive of terminar:
- eu/ele/ela: terminar
- tu: terminares
- nós: terminarmos
- vós: terminardes
- eles/elas: terminarem
Note that for 1st and 3rd person singular it looks identical to the infinitive, which is why it can be confusing.
Portuguese often uses the present indicative to talk about scheduled, habitual, or near‑future actions after a future time clause. So:
- Quando terminar o trabalho, termino sessão e desligo o portátil. = plan/routine/near future You could also use the future indicative for a more formal or “committed” tone:
- Quando terminar o trabalho, terminarei/encerrerei a sessão e desligarei o portátil. Or use the periphrastic future:
- Quando terminar o trabalho, vou terminar a sessão e (vou) desligar o portátil.
Yes. When a subordinate clause like Quando terminar o trabalho comes first, standard punctuation puts a comma after it. If you flip the order, you normally drop the comma:
- Termino sessão e desligo o portátil quando terminar o trabalho.
- Quando terminar o trabalho refers to finishing a specific task/job.
- Quando terminar de trabalhar refers to finishing the activity of working (e.g., at the end of your workday). Both are fine; choose based on what you want to emphasize. You’ll also hear Quando acabar o trabalho and Quando acabar de trabalhar in Portugal.
All three are used:
- Terminar sessão and encerrar sessão are standard in Portugal, especially in UI text.
- Sair / sair da conta is very common in everyday usage on websites/apps.
- Anglicisms like fazer logout occur but are less formal.
- desligar o portátil = to power off/turn off the laptop (standard).
- apagar is common for lights/cigarettes but many people also say apagar o computador; desligar is the safer choice for devices.
- fechar o portátil usually means closing the lid, not powering off.
- encerrar is used for programs/sessions (e.g., encerrar sessão), not typically for turning off hardware.
Approximate European Portuguese:
- Quando: KWAHN-doo (the a is short, nasalized)
- terminar: tuh-mee-NAR
- trabalho: truh-BAH-lyoo (the LH = the “lli” in “million”)
- termino: tuhr-MEE-noo
- sessão: suh-SOWN (final ão is a nasal “ow”)
- desligo: dez-LEE-goo (the s sounds like “z” here)
- portátil: por-TAH-teel (stress on TA; final L is “dark”)
Yes:
- Assim que terminar o trabalho, …
- Logo que terminar o trabalho, …
- More formal/literary: Mal terminar o trabalho, … All still take the future subjunctive in that clause because the action is future/uncertain.
With quando, Portuguese prefers proclisis (pronoun before the verb):
- Quando o terminar, termino (a) sessão e desligo o portátil. In the main clause (neutral affirmative), enclisis is used:
- Desligo-o. (I turn it off.) Note the hyphen in enclisis: desligo-o; with infinitives/participles you’d see forms like terminá-lo.
They’re near-synonyms. In Portugal:
- terminar can sound a touch more neutral/formal.
- acabar is very common in speech. Both work in your sentence. Just remember that in other contexts, acabar de + infinitive often means “to have just done” (e.g., Acabei de trabalhar = “I’ve just finished working”).