Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil. - The teacher said that if everyone had studied more, they would have found the test easy.

This is the standard way to express a hypothetical / unreal condition in the past, just like English “If everyone had studied more, they would have found the test easy.”

The pattern is:

“se” + pluperfect subjunctive
→ se todos tivessem estudado mais = if everyone had studied more
conditional perfect (compound conditional)
→ teriam achado = they would have found / would have considered

So the whole structure is a typical “3rd conditional” in English:

Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
= If everyone had studied more, they would have found the test easy.

Why is it “tivessem estudado” and not something like “tinham estudado” after “se”?

Because in Portuguese, an unreal/hypothetical condition introduced by “se” normally uses the subjunctive, not the indicative.

tivessem estudado = past (pluperfect) subjunctive of ter
- past participle
  → used for unreal or counterfactual conditions in the past.

If you said “se todos tinham estudado mais”, it would sound wrong or at least very unnatural in this context. It would suggest you’re checking a fact (“if they had studied more, then why…?”), but even then native speakers would tend to avoid it.

Compare:

Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
→ They didn’t study more; this is hypothetical.

The subjunctive (tivessem) signals that the situation is not real in the speaker’s view.

What exactly is the tense “tivessem estudado”? How is it formed, and when is it used?

“Tivessem estudado” is:

pretérito mais-que-perfeito do conjuntivo
(pluperfect / past perfect subjunctive)

It’s formed as:

ter in the imperfect subjunctive + past participle
- eu tivesse estudado
- tu tivesses estudado
- ele/ela/você tivesse estudado
- nós tivéssemos estudado
- vocês/eles tivessem estudado

Main uses:

Unreal conditions in the past (like here):
- Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
In some other subordinate clauses referring to an earlier past event, still “coloured” by doubt, possibility, or unreality.
- Eu teria ajudado se me tivessem pedido.
  = I would have helped if they had asked me.

In everyday speech, this tense appears very often in “se”-clauses.

What tense is “teriam achado”, and how is it different from just “achariam”?

“Teriam achado” is the compound conditional:

Portuguese name: futuro do pretérito composto (or condicional composto)
Rough English equivalent: “would have found / would have considered”

Structure:

teriam (conditional of ter) + achado (past participle of achar)

Difference:

teriam achado → completed hypothetical action in the past
- If they had studied more, they would have found the test easy (but they didn’t).
achariam → simple conditional (“would find”)
- Used for present/future hypotheticals, or more general statements:
  - Se estudassem mais, achariam o teste fácil.
    = If they studied more, they would find the test easy (in general / next time).

So:

Se tivessem estudado, teriam achado… → past counterfactual
Se estudassem, achariam… → present/future unreal or general hypothetical

Can I change the word order of the “se” clause? For example, say the “if”-part at the end?

Yes. The “se” clause is quite flexible in position. All of these are grammatical, with no real change of meaning:

As in your sentence (inside reported speech, before main verb):
- A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
Move the “se” clause after the main conditional clause:
- A professora disse que teriam achado o teste fácil, se todos tivessem estudado mais.
Without reported speech, at the beginning:
- Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
Without reported speech, at the end:
- Teriam achado o teste fácil se todos tivessem estudado mais.

When the “se”-clause comes first, a comma is almost always written after it. When it comes second, many people omit the comma in informal writing, though you’ll often see it with a comma in more careful style.

Why is there a comma after “que”: “disse que, se todos tivessem estudado…”? Is that comma necessary?

Here, “que” introduces the whole reported statement:

que teriam achado o teste fácil

Inside that statement, you have an inserted conditional clause:

se todos tivessem estudado mais

So structurally it’s:

A professora disse que [ , se todos tivessem estudado mais, ] teriam achado o teste fácil.

The “se” clause interrupts the main structure (que … teriam achado), so standard punctuation uses commas to set it off on both sides.

You’ll see:

A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.

In very informal writing, some people might omit the comma after “que”, but the version with the comma is what you’ll find in careful, standard European Portuguese.

What does “achar” mean here? I thought “achar” means “to find”.

“Achar” has several common meanings:

To find (physically)
- Achei as chaves. = I found the keys.
To think / to have an opinion (very common in speech)
- Acho que vai chover. = I think it’s going to rain.
To find / consider something (adjective)
→ This is the meaning in your sentence.
- Achar o teste fácil = to find the test easy / to consider the test easy.

So:

teriam achado o teste fácil
= they would have found the test easy / they would have thought the test was easy.

For purely physical “to find”, you can also use “encontrar”, but in the “consider something [adjective]” sense, you need “achar”, not “encontrar”.

Why is it “o teste” and not “um teste”?

The definite article “o” shows that we’re talking about a specific, known test:

o teste = the test (the particular test they did)
um teste = a test (any test / some test, not specified)

In this context, everyone knows which test is being discussed (probably the last one they took), so Portuguese naturally uses “o teste”.

If you said “achariam um teste fácil”, it would sound like “they would find a test easy” in a more general, less specific sense.

Who does “todos” refer to here? Can “todos” stand alone like that?

Yes, “todos” can stand on its own as a pronoun meaning “everyone / all of them”, when the group is clear from context.

se todos tivessem estudado mais
→ if everyone had studied more / if they all had studied more

Often, the group has been mentioned earlier (e.g. os alunos), so you don’t need to repeat the noun.

You can also make it more explicit:

se todos os alunos tivessem estudado mais = if all the students had studied more
se todos eles tivessem estudado mais = if all of them had studied more

But just “todos” is perfectly natural here.

What would the direct-speech version of this sentence look like in Portuguese? Is there any tense change between direct and indirect speech?

The direct-speech version would simply be the conditional sentence by itself, quoted:

A professora disse: «Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.»

Notice:

The inner sentence “Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil”
stays exactly the same when you turn it into indirect speech with “disse que”.

So:

Direct:
A professora disse: «Se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.»
Indirect:
A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.

Unlike English, Portuguese does not systematically change these tenses in reported speech (no automatic “backshifting” like would have found → would have found etc. — it just stays).

Is this specifically European Portuguese? Would Brazilians say the same sentence?

Grammatically, the sentence works in both European and Brazilian Portuguese. The main difference you’d often see in Brazil is lexical:

Brazilians often say “a prova” instead of “o teste” for a school test.

So a very natural Brazilian version might be:

A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado a prova fácil.

Verb forms (tivessem estudado, teriam achado) and structure with “se” + subjunctive + conditional are the same in both varieties.

How do you pronounce “tivessem” and “teriam” in European Portuguese?

Approximate European Portuguese pronunciation (simplified, not strict IPA):

tivessem ≈ tee-VEH-sem
- Stress on VEH.
- Final -em is like a nasal “eng” sound, not a full “em”.
teriam ≈ teh-REE-əm
- Stress on REE.
- Final -am tends to sound like a very reduced, nasal “ə(ng)”.

Full sentence (roughly):

A professora disse que, se todos tivessem estudado mais, teriam achado o teste fácil.
≈ Ah pru-fu-REH-suh-ruh DEE-suh kə, si TO-doosh tee-VEH-sem es-tu-DAH-du mais, te-REE-əm a-SHAH-du u TESH-tə FAH-sil.

This is just to give you a feel; actual European Portuguese is more reduced and faster in natural speech.