Breakdown of Embora a nossa gráfica vá falir, a impressão é fantástica.
ser
to be
nosso
our (m/f/pl: nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas)
ir
to go
fantástico
fantastic
embora
even though
falir
to go bankrupt
a gráfica
the printing shop
a impressão
the printing
Questions & Answers about Embora a nossa gráfica vá falir, a impressão é fantástica.
Why is the sentence using vá falir instead of just conjugating falir in the present subjunctive after embora?
The word embora requires the present subjunctive, but falir (to go bankrupt) is a defective verb. It lacks a first-person singular present indicative form (there is no eu form). Since the present subjunctive in Portuguese is built directly from that exact form, falir has no present subjunctive at all! To get around this missing conjugation, we use the auxiliary verb ir in the subjunctive (vá) plus the infinitive falir.
Are there other tenses where falir is missing forms?
Yes. In the present indicative, it only has the nós (falimos) and vós (falis) forms. For the missing forms (I, you, he/she/it, they), Portuguese speakers usually use a synonym phrase like abrir falência (to declare bankruptcy) or use an auxiliary verb, just like we did in this sentence with ir.
Why doesn't the verb falir have all its present tense forms?
It is largely due to historical pronunciation clashes. If you conjugated falir normally, some of the missing forms would sound exactly like the conjugations for falar (to speak). For example, the present subjunctive for falir would theoretically be fale, which is already the present subjunctive of falar. To avoid extreme confusion, the language simply dropped those forms of falir, creating a morphological gap.
I know impressão can mean a feeling or a personal impression, but does it mean something else here?
Yes, in this context, impressão refers to the physical printing process or the print quality, while gráfica is the printing shop or printing company itself. While impressão can definitely mean a mental impression (like making a good impression on someone), here it directly relates to the printing business.
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