Breakdown of Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarda o computador e senta‑te.
Questions & Answers about Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarda o computador e senta‑te.
Estiver is the future subjunctive of estar.
In European Portuguese, after se (if) referring to a future possibility, you usually use the future subjunctive, not the present:
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar…
= If the meeting is about to start (at that future moment)…
Using Se a reunião está… would sound wrong or at least unnatural in standard Portuguese, because it mixes se (if) with a form normally used for present, factual statements, not a possible future condition.
So:
- Se + future idea → future subjunctive
e.g. Se chover, não vamos. (If it rains, we won’t go.)
Estar prestes a + infinitive means to be about to (do something), i.e. something is on the point of happening very soon.
- estar prestes a começar = to be about to start
- O comboio está prestes a partir. = The train is about to leave.
Structure:
- estar (conjugated) + prestes (invariable) + a
- infinitive
You can replace it with quase a + infinitive in European Portuguese:
- A reunião está quase a começar.
= The meeting is about to start / is almost starting.
Estiver is the future subjunctive of estar.
Future subjunctive of estar:
- eu estiver
- tu estiveres
- ele/ela/você estiver
- nós estivermos
- eles/elas/vocês estiverem
To form the future subjunctive in general, you take the 3rd person plural of the simple past (pretérito perfeito), drop -am, and add the endings:
- estar → estiveram → remove -am → stem estiver-
→ estiver, estiveres, estiver, estivermos, estiverem
It’s common after conjunctions like se, quando, logo que, assim que when they refer to a future event:
- Quando a reunião estiver a terminar, avisa-me.
- Se ele chegar cedo, jantamos juntos.
For natural, standard European Portuguese in this conditional structure, no:
- Se a reunião está prestes a começar… → sounds wrong/odd.
- Se a reunião vai começar… → grammatically possible but unusual in this specific “if + future condition” pattern.
The normal, idiomatic way for a future condition with se is:
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar…
If you want to avoid the future subjunctive, you could recast the sentence:
- Quando a reunião estiver prestes a começar… (When the meeting is about to start…)
- Quando a reunião estiver quase a começar…
Se a reunião estiver… = If the meeting is…
→ suggests uncertainty: maybe it will be about to start, maybe not.Quando a reunião estiver… = When the meeting is…
→ assumes the meeting will reach that point; it’s about when, not if.
So:
Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarda o computador…
= If the meeting is about to start, put the computer away… (conditional)Quando a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarda o computador…
= When the meeting is about to start, put the computer away… (temporal instruction)
Guarda is the imperative (command) form for “tu” of the verb guardar.
In European Portuguese, for affirmative commands with tu, you generally use the 3rd person singular of the present indicative:
Present indicative of guardar:
eu guardo, tu guardas, ele guarda, nós guardamos, eles guardamImperative (tu): guarda
→ Guarda o computador. = Put the computer away.
Negative command uses the present subjunctive:
- Não guardes o computador. = Don’t put the computer away.
In this sentence, guardar o computador means to put the computer away / to put it aside, not “to save a file”.
Guardar can mean:
- to put away / to store:
- Guarda o livro na prateleira. = Put the book on the shelf.
- to keep (not give away):
- Guardei as cartas antigas. = I kept the old letters.
- to save (keep for later) in some contexts.
For saving a file on a computer, you would typically say:
- guardar o ficheiro or gravar o ficheiro (to save the file).
So in your sentence it’s clearly “put the computer away”.
Because the verb is sentar‑se, a reflexive verb meaning “to sit down” (to seat yourself).
- sentar = to seat (someone/something else)
- sentar‑se = to sit down (yourself)
In the tu imperative, the form is:
- Senta‑te. = Sit down.
The te is the reflexive pronoun for tu, meaning yourself.
In European Portuguese, in affirmative commands, object and reflexive pronouns usually go after the verb and are joined by a hyphen. This is called ênclise (enclisis).
So:
- Senta‑te. (Sit down.)
- Levanta‑te. (Get up.)
- Despacha‑te. (Hurry up.)
If the command were negative, the pronoun would come before the verb (proclisis), without a hyphen, and the verb would be in the subjunctive:
- Não te sentes. = Don’t sit down.
For vocês (plural “you”), both verbs change to the plural imperative, and the reflexive pronoun becomes se:
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guardem o computador e sentem‑se.
Breakdown:
- guardem = imperative of guardar for vocês
- sentem‑se = imperative of sentar‑se for vocês
For a single formal você, use the 3rd person singular imperative forms and the pronoun se:
Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarde o computador e sente‑se.
- guarde = formal command to você from guardar
- sente‑se = formal command of sentar‑se for você
- a reunião = the meeting (article a
- noun)
- à reunião = to the meeting (contraction of preposition a
- article a)
In your sentence, a reunião is the subject of the verb estiver:
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar…
(If the meeting is about to start…)
There is no preposition “a” here, so you just use the article a, not the contraction à.
You would use à reunião in contexts like:
- Vou à reunião. = I’m going to the meeting.
Yes. Common, natural options:
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, guarda o computador e senta‑te, por favor.
- Se a reunião estiver prestes a começar, por favor guarda o computador e senta‑te.
In speech, por favor is often placed at the end or after the conjunction. All of the above sound fine in European Portuguese.