Breakdown of Se a Ana tiver praticado bastante, vai sentir‑se segura na próxima competição.
Questions & Answers about Se a Ana tiver praticado bastante, vai sentir‑se segura na próxima competição.
In European Portuguese, it is very common to use the definite article (o, a) before people’s first names:
- a Ana, o Pedro, a Marta, o João
This sounds natural and neutral in Portugal, especially in everyday speech and writing.
You typically don’t use the article:
- when directly addressing someone: Ana, vem cá! (not a Ana, vem cá!)
- in some very formal or official contexts (e.g. lists, headings)
So Se a Ana tiver praticado… is the normal way to say If Ana has practised… in European Portuguese.
Saying just Se Ana tiver praticado… is possible, but in Portugal it often sounds more formal, literary, or influenced by Brazilian Portuguese.
Tiver praticado is the future perfect subjunctive (in Portuguese school grammar: futuro composto do conjuntivo):
- auxiliary ter in the future subjunctive: tiver
- plus the past participle: praticado
So:
- tiver praticado ≈ will have practised / has practised (by that time)
After se (if) talking about a future condition, Portuguese normally uses the future subjunctive, not the present:
- Se a Ana praticar bastante… – if Ana practises a lot (simple future condition)
- Se a Ana tiver praticado bastante… – if by then Ana has already practised a lot (completed action before the future moment)
English normally just uses the present or present perfect:
- If Ana practises a lot, she’ll feel confident.
- If Ana has practised a lot, she’ll feel confident.
Portuguese is stricter about using the subjunctive in these future se-clauses.
It’s formed with:
- ter in the future subjunctive
- plus the past participle praticado
Future subjunctive of ter:
- eu tiver
- tu tiveres
- ele / ela / você tiver
- nós tivermos
- eles / elas / vocês tiverem
So:
- se eu tiver praticado
- se tu tiveres praticado
- se a Ana tiver praticado
- se nós tivermos praticado
- se eles tiverem praticado
The participle praticado doesn’t change; only ter changes.
Both are grammatically correct, but the nuance is different:
Se a Ana praticar bastante, vai sentir‑se segura…
Emphasis on what she does from now on. The practising is the condition itself, seen as a future action.
Se a Ana tiver praticado bastante, vai sentir‑se segura…
Emphasis on the result by that future moment: if by the time of the competition she has already practised a lot.
In English terms:
- se praticar bastante ≈ if she practises a lot (between now and then)
- se tiver praticado bastante ≈ if she has practised a lot (by that time / by then)
In many contexts they overlap, and speakers might choose either one without a big difference in meaning.
Portuguese has two common ways to talk about the future:
Simple future (synthetic):
- sentir‑se‑á segura – she will feel confident
Ir + infinitive (periphrastic future):
- vai sentir‑se segura – she is going to feel confident
In modern European Portuguese:
- The ir + infinitive form (vai sentir‑se) is much more common in speech and neutral writing.
- The simple future (sentir‑se‑á) sounds more formal, literary, or written; in everyday conversation it can feel stiff or old-fashioned.
So vai sentir‑se segura is the natural, everyday choice here.
The pronoun se here is a reflexive clitic pronoun; it must attach to a verb.
In European Portuguese, with ir + infinitive (like vai sentir), the default placement is:
- attach the pronoun to the infinitive:
vai sentir‑se
This is the pattern you’ll usually learn and see:
- vou levantar‑me cedo
- vamos divertir‑nos
- vão concentrar‑se muito
Forms like vai‑se sentir also occur in real usage, but for a learner of European Portuguese, vai sentir‑se is the clearest and most standard pattern to follow.
Se vai sentir is not correct here, because se must be directly attached to a verb form by hyphen (or come before a finite verb in contexts that require proclisis). You cannot just put se freely between words.
Portuguese uses hyphens to attach clitic pronouns (like me, te, se, nos, vos, o, a, lhe, etc.) to verbs in certain positions.
When the pronoun comes after the verb (enclisis), you must use a hyphen:
- sentir‑se
- levantar‑se
- lembrar‑se
- vai sentir‑se
- queremos preparar‑nos
So sentir‑se is the infinitive sentir plus the reflexive pronoun se, joined with a hyphen as required by Portuguese spelling rules.
In this sentence, bastante most naturally means a lot / quite a lot / a great deal.
Portuguese bastante can mean two slightly different things depending on context:
With verbs, often: a lot, quite a bit
- praticar bastante – to practise a lot / quite a bit
- trabalharam bastante – they worked a lot
With adjectives or nouns, often: quite / fairly / enough
- bastante boa – quite good / good enough
- tenho bastante tempo – I have enough time / plenty of time
Here, praticado bastante = has practised a lot (not just the minimum “enough”, but really quite a bit).
Na is the contraction of:
- em (in / at / on)
- a (feminine singular definite article: the)
So:
- em + a próxima competição → na próxima competição
na próxima competição = in the next competition
Other similar contractions:
- em + o → no (no jogo – in the game)
- em + os → nos
- em + as → nas
In this context, próxima means next (upcoming) in time:
- a próxima competição – the next competition (the one that will happen after now)
Seguinte usually refers to following in a sequence, often relative to something just mentioned:
- no dia seguinte – on the following day (after the day already mentioned)
- na página seguinte – on the following page
You could say na competição seguinte if you were talking about a sequence of competitions that has already started (e.g. you’ve just described one competition and now you talk about the one that followed it).
For “the next competition (in the future)”, próxima competição is the natural choice.
Yes, absolutely. Both word orders are correct:
- Se a Ana tiver praticado bastante, vai sentir‑se segura na próxima competição.
- A Ana vai sentir‑se segura na próxima competição se tiver praticado bastante.
The meaning is the same. Putting the se‑clause first just emphasizes the condition a bit more, which is very common in both Portuguese and English.