Breakdown of Se limpássemos a cave aos domingos, não teríamos baratas.
não
not / no
ter
to have
o domingo
the Sunday
a
to / at (direction)
limpar
to clean
se
if
a cave
the basement, the cellar
a barata
the cockroach
Questions & Answers about Se limpássemos a cave aos domingos, não teríamos baratas.
Why is the verb limpássemos used here instead of the normal past tense?
This sentence describes a hypothetical situation: we do not actually clean the basement on Sundays, but what if we did? In Portuguese, when you set up an unlikely or imaginary condition with se (if), you must use the imperfect subjunctive tense for that verb. For the verb limpar in the we form, that becomes limpássemos.
What tense is teríamos in the second half of the sentence?
It is the conditional tense of the verb ter (to have), which translates to would have in English. This goes hand-in-hand with the imperfect subjunctive. While the first part sets up the imaginary condition (Se limpássemos), the second part uses the conditional to tell us what the imaginary result would be (não teríamos baratas).
Does cave mean the same thing as the English word cave?
No, this is a false friend! In Portugal, a cave means the basement or cellar of a building. If you want to talk about a natural cave in nature, you would use the word gruta or caverna.
Why do we use aos in aos domingos instead of a word like em?
To describe an action that happens regularly on a specific day of the week, Portuguese combines the preposition a with the plural definite article. Since domingo is masculine, a plus os becomes aos domingos (on Sundays). If you were talking about an action happening on one specific Sunday, you would use no domingo.
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