Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço, a recompensa será maior. - If we have learned from the failure, the reward will be greater.

Tivermos aprendido is the future perfect subjunctive (in Portuguese: futuro composto do conjuntivo) of aprender formed with ter + past participle:

ter in the future subjunctive: tivermos (1st person plural)
past participle of aprender: aprendido

So se tivermos aprendido literally means “if we will have learned / if we have learned (by then)”, referring to a situation that will be completed before or by the time of something else in the future (here, “the reward will be greater”).

It’s used in conditional sentences about the future, often with se (“if”).

Why not just say se aprendermos instead of se tivermos aprendido? Do they mean the same thing?

Both are grammatically correct, but there is a nuance:

Se aprendermos com o falhanço, a recompensa será maior.
→ If we learn from the failure, the reward will be greater.
Focus: the process of learning in the future.
Se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço, a recompensa será maior.
→ If we have learned from the failure, the reward will be greater.
Focus: the learning is already completed by the time the reward comes.

In practice, in everyday speech, many speakers might use se aprendermos even when the idea is “if, by then, we have learned”.
Se tivermos aprendido sounds a bit more explicitly temporal and slightly more formal/careful, stressing that the learning must be already achieved before the “reward”.

What would change if I said Se tivéssemos aprendido com o falhanço, a recompensa seria maior?

That creates a hypothetical / unreal past situation, similar to English “If we had learned from the failure, the reward would be greater”:

Se tivéssemos aprendido → pluperfect subjunctive (pretérito mais-que-perfeito do conjuntivo)
seria → conditional

Meaning:

Se tivermos aprendido…, a recompensa será maior.
→ A real, possible future condition.
Se tivéssemos aprendido…, a recompensa seria maior.
→ A regret or unreal past: we didn’t (or probably didn’t) learn, so the reward is not as big as it could have been.

So it changes from a future possibility to a past “if only we had…” kind of structure.

Why is it com o falhanço and not just com falhanço or another article?

Portuguese tends to use the definite article more than English, even with abstract or generic nouns.

com o falhanço
– can refer to the specific failure previously mentioned
– or to failure in general as a concept, depending on context

If you say:

com falhanço (without article)
→ sounds odd here; without context it feels incomplete or unnatural.

Other possible variants, depending on meaning/context:

com o nosso falhanço – with our failure
com esse falhanço – with that failure (specific one)
com os falhanços – with failures (in general, plural)

In European Portuguese, using the article with such nouns is very common and usually preferred.

What’s the difference between falhanço, falha, erro, and fracasso? Which one is best here?

All are related to the idea of “failure”, but with different usual shades:

falhanço
- colloquial / informal; common in European Portuguese
- often a clear failure, “a flop”, “a screw-up”
- strong, vivid word: O projecto foi um falhanço. – “The project was a flop.”
falha
- more like a fault, glitch, shortcoming, or mistake
- Houve uma falha de comunicação. – “There was a communication failure.”
erro
- error, mistake (often more neutral, can be small)
- Cometemos um erro. – “We made a mistake.”
fracasso
- more formal; failure as a result (often big/serious)
- O plano foi um fracasso total. – “The plan was a complete failure.”

In this motivational sentence, falhanço works well: it sounds personal and informal, like “if we learned from the screw-up / from our failure”.
You could also use fracasso for a more formal tone:

Se tivermos aprendido com o fracasso, a recompensa será maior.

Why is it a recompensa será maior and not a recompensa seria maior or a recompensa é maior?

It follows the standard Portuguese pattern for real future conditions:

se
- future (perfect) subjunctive → future indicative
  - Se tivermos aprendido, a recompensa será maior.

Changing the verb in the main clause changes the type of condition:

Será (future indicative)
- Realistic future possibility:
- “If we (do) learn, the reward will be greater.”
Seria (conditional)
- Unreal / hypothetical situation (often combined with se tivéssemos aprendido):
- Se tivéssemos aprendido, a recompensa seria maior.
- “If we had learned, the reward would be greater.”
É (present)
- General truth or present-time fact:
- Se aprendemos com o falhanço, a recompensa é maior.
- This sounds more like a general principle: whenever we learn from failure, the reward is greater.

In the original sentence, the speaker is talking about a future possible scenario, so será is the natural choice.

How is ter conjugated in this future perfect subjunctive form?

The future subjunctive of ter is:

eu tiver
tu tiveres
ele / ela / você tiver
nós tivermos
vós tiverdes (rare in modern European Portuguese)
eles / elas / vocês tiverem

To form the future perfect subjunctive, you combine this with a past participle:

tiver aprendido – if I have learned
tiveres aprendido – if you have learned
tivermos aprendido – if we have learned

So your sentence uses nós tivermos aprendido = “if we have learned”.

Why do we use the form aprendido here? Is that always the same?

Aprendido is the past participle of aprender.

With ter (to have) in compound tenses (like tivermos aprendido, temos aprendido, tínhamos aprendido), Portuguese uses the invariable past participle:

ter
- aprendido – have learned / had learned / will have learned

For regular -er verbs like aprender, the past participle usually ends in -ido:

vender → vendido
beber → bebido
aprender → aprendido

So here, aprendido is the normal, regular past participle used after ter.

Why is it aprender com o falhanço and not aprender de o falhanço or something else?

The verb aprender commonly takes different prepositions depending on the structure:

aprender com [algo/alguém]
- “learn from [something/someone]” (through experience, by being affected by it)
- aprender com os erros – learn from (one’s) mistakes
- aprender com o falhanço – learn from the failure
aprender de / com alguém
- with a person, both de and com can appear, but com is very common in European Portuguese:
- Aprendi muito com o meu professor. – I learned a lot from my teacher.
aprender a + infinitive
- learn to do something:
- aprender a falar português – learn to speak Portuguese

In this sentence, we’re talking about learning as a result of experiencing failure, so aprender com o falhanço (learn from failure) is the natural idiomatic choice.

Is maior just “bigger”, or is there any special rule? Why not mais grande?

Maior is the irregular comparative of grande:

grande → maior (bigger / greater)
pequeno → menor (smaller / lesser)

You do not say mais grande in standard Portuguese; you use maior instead.

So:

a recompensa será maior
→ the reward will be greater / bigger (than something understood from context)

If you wanted the superlative (“the biggest”), you would say:

a maior recompensa – the biggest / greatest reward

Can I change the word order, like A recompensa será maior se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço?

Yes. Both orders are natural:

Se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço, a recompensa será maior.
A recompensa será maior se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço.

The meaning is the same.

Placing the se-clause first can sound a bit more emphatic on the condition; placing it second can sound more neutral. But both are standard and common in European Portuguese.

How do I pronounce falhanço and tivermos aprendido in European Portuguese?

Approximate European Portuguese pronunciation:

falhanço → [fa-ˈʎɐ̃-su]
- lh = like the lli in “million” ([ʎ])
- an before ç = nasalized sound [ɐ̃] (similar to French an but shorter)
- ç = s sound, as in “see”
tivermos → [ti-ˈvɛɾ-muʃ] (EP)
- r between vowels often a tap [ɾ]
- s at the end of a word before a pause usually sounds like [ʃ] (sh) in European Portuguese
aprendido → [ɐ-pɾẽ-ˈdi-ðu]
- initial a often reduced to [ɐ]
- pr cluster with a rolled or tapped r
- en can be slightly nasal [ẽ] in fast speech, though here it’s often pronounced more clearly

Putting it together naturally (EP):
Se tivermos aprendido com o falhanço, a recompensa será maior.
→ [sɨ tiˈvɛɾmuʃ ɐpɾẽˈdidʊ kõ mu faˈʎɐ̃su ɐ ʁɛkõˈpẽsɐ sɨˈɾa mɐˈjoɾ] (approximate).