To express probability or make a guess in European Portuguese, one of the most common and natural expressions to use is se calhar (maybe / perhaps).
Using "se calhar" with the indicative
The best part about se calhar is that it is always followed by the indicative mood—the normal, everyday tenses you already know. Unlike some other words for "maybe" (such as talvez), it does not require you to learn or use the subjunctive mood.
You can simply place se calhar at the beginning of a regular sentence to guess where something is right now or what a situation is:
| Maybe the personal object is in this section. | Se calhar o objeto pessoal está nesta secção. |
| Maybe the security guard needs your identification. | Se calhar o vigilante precisa da tua identificação. |
| Maybe the missing umbrella is with the security guard. | Se calhar, o guarda-chuva desaparecido está com o vigilante. |
Guessing what happened in the past
Because se calhar just takes the regular indicative, you can easily use it with past tenses to guess what might have happened to misplaced belongings. Just combine it with the pretérito imperfeito (past continuous) or pretérito perfeito (simple past):
| Maybe the man was distracted and did not read the description. | Se calhar o homem estava distraído e não leu a descrição. |
| Maybe you were distracted and lost your wallet. | Se calhar estavas distraído e perdeste a carteira. |
| Maybe you left your identification in the storage room. | Se calhar deixaste a tua identificação na arrecadação. |
