Se chover, leva o impermeável.

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Breakdown of Se chover, leva o impermeável.

• levar: to take
• chover: to rain
• o impermeável: the raincoat

Questions & Answers about Se chover, leva o impermeável.

Why is it chover after se, not chove?

Because Portuguese normally uses the future subjunctive after se when talking about a possible future condition.

So:

• Se chover = If it rains
• not Se chove for this meaning

This is different from English, where we use a present form after if:

• If it rains, take the raincoat.

In Portuguese, the idea is future possibility, so chover is the correct form here.

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But chover looks like the infinitive. Is it really a conjugated form?

Yes. In this sentence, chover is the future subjunctive form, even though it looks identical to the infinitive.

That happens with many verbs in some forms. So here:

• infinitive: chover
• future subjunctive (for ele/ela/você, and also often with no explicit subject): chover

A good way to see the difference is with irregular verbs:

• se for = if he/she/you go(es)
• se tiver = if he/she/you have(s)

So even though chover looks unchanged, its job in the sentence is grammatical, not infinitive.

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What exactly is leva here?