Breakdown of Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem e acordar relaxado, como se nunca tivesses conhecido o cansaço.
Questions & Answers about Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem e acordar relaxado, como se nunca tivesses conhecido o cansaço.
Hás de comes from haver de + infinitive and is a very common way to talk about the future in European Portuguese.
Rough equivalents in English:
- tu hás de dormir ≈ you will eventually sleep / you are bound to sleep / one day you’ll sleep
Compared with other future forms:
dormirás (synthetic future)
- Literally you will sleep.
- Grammatically correct but in everyday speech in Portugal it can sound a bit formal, literary, or distant.
- Used more in writing, journalism, speeches, or for stylistic effect.
vais dormir (ir
- infinitive)
- The most common spoken way to express future.
- Often feels more concrete or near in time: you’re going to sleep (soon / at some specific time).
hás de dormir (haver de
- infinitive)
- Common in both speech and writing.
- Often carries a nuance of eventuality, destiny, or a calm certainty about the future:
- Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem… = One day (sooner or later, at some point in life), you’ll sleep well…
- It can feel slightly more expressive or emotional than just vais dormir.
So in this sentence, hás de dormir suggests a kind of hopeful promise about the future rather than a fixed scheduled plan.
In European Portuguese, hás de is broadly neutral and very natural.
- It is not restricted to formal contexts.
- You will hear it in ordinary conversation (especially with a poetic, hopeful, or consoling tone), and you can also see it in writing, literature, and song lyrics.
- It can sound slightly more expressive than vais dormir, but it does not sound old-fashioned or pompous in Portugal.
So you can safely use tu hás de… in normal conversations as long as tu itself is appropriate for the relationship.
Tu is the informal second-person singular pronoun in European Portuguese, used with friends, family, children, and in many informal settings.
In Portuguese, subject pronouns are often optional because the verb ending already shows the person:
- Tu hás de dormir bem…
- Hás de dormir bem…
Both are correct and mean the same thing. The version without tu is very natural and quite common.
Using tu can:
- Emphasize the subject a bit more (for contrast or focus), or
- Simply reflect the speaker’s personal style.
In a neutral version of the sentence, many native speakers would probably say:
- Um dia, hás de dormir bem e acordar relaxado…
Yes, you can, but there are slight nuances:
Um dia, tu vais dormir bem…
- Very common and neutral.
- Feels like one day you are going to sleep well; a straightforward future.
Um dia, tu irás dormir bem…
- Grammatically fine but sounds more formal or literary in speech.
- Similar style level to dormirás.
Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem…
- Slightly more expressive, often with a nuance of hope or inevitability: you are bound to / you’ll eventually.
All three are understandable and correct; the original with hás de simply adds a gentle, almost reassuring tone.
Because the word describes how you feel, not something that causes relaxation.
relaxado = relaxed (your state)
- Past participle of relaxar, used as an adjective.
- acordar relaxado = to wake up relaxed.
relaxante = relaxing (that causes relaxation)
- Used for things like music, baths, massages:
- uma música relaxante = relaxing music
- um banho relaxante = a relaxing bath
- Used for things like music, baths, massages:
So acordar relaxante would be wrong here, because you are not “relaxing” in the sense of “causing relaxation”; you are in a relaxed state.
Adjectives in Portuguese agree in gender and number with the subject.
Here the implied subject is tu (a male person), so:
- tu acordas relaxado
- acordar relaxado
If the person is female, you change the ending:
- Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem e acordar relaxada…
- relaxada (feminine singular)
For a group:
- Mixed or all-male group: acordar relaxados
- All-female group: acordar relaxadas
In Portuguese, como se typically introduces a hypothetical or unreal comparison, and it almost always requires the subjunctive.
- como se = as if
After como se, you usually use:
- Imperfect subjunctive (pretérito imperfeito do conjuntivo), or
- Pluperfect / compound subjunctive (pretérito mais-que-perfeito composto do conjuntivo).
In the sentence:
- como se nunca tivesses conhecido o cansaço
- tivesses conhecido is a past perfect (compound) subjunctive.
- It matches English as if you had never known / experienced tiredness.
Using conheceste (indicative, simple past) would change the meaning:
- como se nunca conheceste o cansaço
- This is ungrammatical in standard Portuguese after como se, because como se here needs the subjunctive, not the indicative.
So: como se + subjunctive is the rule for this type of unreal comparison.
Both are subjunctive and both are possible, but they focus on slightly different aspects of time and meaning.
como se nunca tivesses conhecido o cansaço
- tivesses conhecido = compound form (past perfect subjunctive).
- Emphasizes that at no point in your life up until then have you ever experienced tiredness.
- Stresses a completed life history with no such experience:
- as if you had never known tiredness (in your life).
como se nunca conhecesses o cansaço
- conhecesses = imperfect subjunctive.
- Feels more like a general, ongoing state of not knowing what tiredness is:
- as if you didn’t know what tiredness is / as if you never knew tiredness.
In practice:
- The original nunca tivesses conhecido fits well with the idea of your whole past up to this awakening: you wake up so refreshed it’s as if you had never, in your entire life, experienced fatigue.
- nunca conhecesses would be understandable and grammatically fine, but slightly less focused on that “life up till now” idea.
Portuguese often uses the definite article with abstract nouns where English does not.
- o cansaço ≈ tiredness / fatigue in general, not any specific instance of it.
The article o here:
- Makes the noun sound more like a concrete concept or known experience.
- Is very natural idiomatic Portuguese: conhecer o cansaço, sentir o medo, combater a tristeza, etc.
You could say conhecer cansaço, but:
- It sounds less natural.
- It might feel incomplete or a bit odd to native ears in this kind of poetic sentence.
So o cansaço is the standard, idiomatic way to express the experience of tiredness.
The comma is optional, but very common and stylistically natural.
Um dia, tu hás de dormir bem…
- Treats Um dia as a separate introductory time phrase, then pauses.
Um dia tu hás de dormir bem…
- Also correct; the meaning is the same.
In writing, many people prefer the comma after a fronted time expression (Um dia, Hoje, Amanhã, etc.), but it is not strictly required by grammar rules in this simple case.
You need to change both the pronoun and the verb form.
- Formal singular (você)
- Um dia, você há de dormir bem e acordar relaxado, como se nunca tivesse conhecido o cansaço.
Notes:
- Verb agrees with você, which uses 3rd person singular: há de, tenha/tivesse.
- relaxado / relaxada changes with the person’s gender, as before.
- In Portugal, você can sound quite distant or even impolite in many contexts; often people prefer o senhor / a senhora or just avoid the pronoun.
- Plural (vocês)
- Um dia, vocês hão de dormir bem e acordar relaxados, como se nunca tivessem conhecido o cansaço.
Notes:
- hão de (3rd person plural of haver de).
- relaxados agrees with vocês (group).
- tivessem conhecido (3rd person plural subjunctive) agrees with vocês.
So the basic structure stays the same; you just update the person and number in the verbs and adjectives.