Condition
What must be true for this to happen or apply?
Significado
A condition makes one situation depend on another. It can describe a real possibility, a regular link, or a situation that is only imagined. Languages can use linking words or verb forms, and some leave the link to context without a separate condition marker. Unlike Imagined situations, Condition is about the link between two situations, not whether either one is real.
Como identificar
Find the situation that must hold for another event to happen or another statement to apply.
Na tua língua materna
Se introduces conditions, including regular situations and future possibilities. For a future possibility, the verb after se normally takes the future subjunctive (futuro do subjuntivo), a form for a possible future event. Imagined conditions use forms such as tivesse, often paired with a conditional form such as compraria, which presents the outcome as imagined.
Se você tem pressa, pode ir na frente.
Tem presents a condition that may already be true.
Se você tiver tempo amanhã, passa lá em casa.
Tiver is the future subjunctive of ter.
Se eu tivesse uma varanda, plantaria flores.
Tivesse presents an imagined situation rather than a current fact.
Na tua língua de aprendizagem
English commonly introduces conditions with if; unless means if ... not. For an ordinary future possibility, the if-part usually uses a present tense even when the other part uses will. For a less likely or imagined situation, English often uses a past form after if and would followed by the verb's base form, its form without endings, in the other part.
If it rains tomorrow, we'll eat inside.
Rains is a present form, but tomorrow makes the future time clear.
You can't use the pool unless you're a guest.
Unless you're a guest means if you're not a guest.
If I had a bigger kitchen, I would buy a larger table.
Had describes an imagined situation now, not a past event.
Learners whose language uses future forms in both parts may put will after if for a simple future condition. Learners whose language marks imagined situations with a special verb ending may not recognize that the past form after if can refer to now or later.