Questions & Answers about Eu reconheço que estava cansado.
Yes. In Portuguese the subject pronoun is often omitted because the verb ending already shows the person.
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado – perfectly correct, slightly more emphasis on eu (I).
- Reconheço que estava cansado – also correct and very natural, especially in speech.
Using eu can sound more emphatic or contrastive: Eu reconheço, mas ele não (I admit it, but he doesn’t).
By default, yes. If there is no new subject in the subordinate clause, it is understood to be the same as the main subject:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado → I acknowledge that I was tired.
If you want to say that someone else was tired, you must say it explicitly:
- Eu reconheço que ele estava cansado – I acknowledge that he was tired.
- Eu reconheço que vocês estavam cansados – I acknowledge that you (pl.) were tired.
Because you are talking about:
- a present act of acknowledging (reconheço – I now recognize/acknowledge)
- a past state (estava cansado – I was tired at that time)
So the meaning is: Now I acknowledge that I was tired (then).
If you say:
- Reconheci que estava cansado – I acknowledged at that time that I was tired (both the recognition and the tiredness are placed in the past).
Yes, it is correct, but the time reference changes:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado – Right now I acknowledge/admit that I was tired (looking back on the past).
- Eu reconheci que estava cansado – At some specific moment in the past I acknowledged/admitted that I was tired.
So the choice depends on whether the act of recognizing is now or in the past.
Both come from estar, but they are different past tenses:
- estava – imperfect: an ongoing state in the past, background, no clear beginning/end.
- estive – preterite: a completed, bounded state, often shorter or more clearly delimited.
With adjectives like cansado, estava cansado is by far the most usual option because being tired is seen as a state that lasted for some time:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado – natural and standard.
- Eu reconheço que estive cansado – possible but sounds more unusual or very specific, as if you are highlighting a brief, clearly limited period of tiredness.
In Portuguese:
- estar is used for temporary or changeable states/conditions.
- ser is used for inherent, permanent or defining characteristics.
Feeling tired is a temporary condition, so you use estar:
- Eu estava cansado – I was (feeling) tired.
Eu era cansado is not normally used in this sense; if used, it would suggest something like I was a tired sort of person by nature, which is a different idea and sounds odd in most contexts.
Adjectives agree with the grammatical gender and number of the subject:
- If the speaker is a man:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado.
- If the speaker is a woman:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansada.
Plural:
- Group of men / mixed group:
- Nós reconhecemos que estávamos cansados.
- Group of only women:
- Nós reconhecemos que estávamos cansadas.
So cansado in the original sentence implies a male speaker (or a masculine grammatical subject).
Que is necessary here. The verb reconhecer takes a clause introduced by que:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado. ✔
- Eu reconheço estava cansado. ✘ (ungrammatical)
In English you can sometimes drop that (e.g. I know (that) you’re right), but in this structure in Portuguese you must keep que.
Not in this exact affirmative sentence. With reconheço que, you state something as a fact, so you use the indicative (estava).
The subjunctive estivesse appears when there is doubt, negation, or some attitude that triggers it. For example:
- Não reconheço que estivesse cansado. – I don’t acknowledge/admit that I was tired.
- Duvido que estivesse cansado. – I doubt that he/I was tired.
So:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado. ✔ (indicative, factual)
- Eu reconheço que estivesse cansado. ✘ (wrong in standard usage)
Yes, both are grammatically correct and close in meaning.
- reconhecer here means to acknowledge, to recognize as true.
- admitir can also mean to admit, to concede.
Nuance:
- reconheço que estava cansado – neutral acknowledgement.
- admito que estava cansado – often suggests conceding something that you might not have wanted to say, a bit more like OK, I admit I was tired.
In many contexts they are interchangeable.
Yes, it is grammatically correct:
- Reconheço que estava cansado.
- Reconheço que eu estava cansado.
Adding eu in the subordinate clause usually gives extra emphasis or contrast:
- Reconheço que eu estava cansado, mas eles não. – I admit that I was tired, but they weren’t.
If there is no contrast, many speakers prefer to omit the second eu because it’s redundant.
Grammatically and lexically, the sentence is fine in both varieties:
- Eu reconheço que estava cansado.
Main differences are in pronunciation and style:
- In European Portuguese, initial es- often sounds like sh: estava ≈ shtava.
- In Brazilian Portuguese, estava is usually pronounced with s as in stay, and in colloquial speech you often hear tava instead of estava.
But the structure and word choice work equally well in Portugal and Brazil.
Very roughly (not strict IPA):
reconheço ≈ rə-ku-NYE-su
- r – throat / French‑style r.
- nh – like ny in canyon.
- ç – like s in see.
- The first e is reduced, not like a full eh.
estava ≈ sh-TA-vɐ
- Initial es → sh sound in Portugal.
- Stress on TA.
- Final a is reduced, not a full ah.
In Brazilian Portuguese you would more likely hear es-TA-va with s (not sh) and a clearer final a.