Question 1

If the teacher originally said "O churrasco será cancelado", why does it become seria cancelado here?

Accepted Answer

This is the core rule of reported speech when the reporting verb (here, explicou) is in the past tense. The original statement was in the Future Indicative (será). To report this in the past, the future tense backshifts (takes a step back in time) to the Conditional (seria). It translates perfectly to English: "will be" becomes "would be".

Question 2

Would a Portuguese person actually use the conditional seria in everyday conversation for this?

Accepted Answer

They would, but in casual, everyday spoken Portuguese, it is also very common to replace the Conditional with the Imperfect tense or a compound structure. You might hear someone say ...que o churrasco era cancelado or ia ser cancelado (was going to be canceled). However, seria is the grammatically standard future-in-the-past and is what you should practice for B2-level writing.

Question 3

Does cancelado change if the subject is feminine?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Because seria cancelado is a passive voice construction (the verb ser plus a past participle), the past participle acts like an adjective. It must agree in gender and number with the subject it describes. If the subject were feminine, like a festa (the party), the sentence would be: A professora explicou que a festa seria cancelada.

Question 4

Does churrasco refer to the food or the event itself?

Accepted Answer

It can be both! Churrasco refers to grilled meat, but just like in English, it is also widely used to describe the social gathering itself. In this sentence, it clearly refers to the event, which is why it makes sense that it would be canceled.

A professora explicou que o churrasco seria cancelado.

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