O presente do conjuntivo
Portuguese has a third mood beyond the indicative and the imperative — the conjuntivo (subjuntivo in BR spelling). Where the indicativo states facts, the conjuntivo lives in the realm of the wished-for, the doubted, the conditional, the not-yet-real. Espero que ele fale comigo = I hope (that) he speaks with me. The trigger word que announces the mood, and the verb that follows takes a special set of endings. Lesson 26 builds the forms; lesson 27 wires up the triggers.
How to build it — the 'eu form swap'
Take the eu form of the present indicative, drop the -o, and add the conjuntivo endings. falar → falo → fal- → add -ar endings. comer → como → com- → add -er/-ir endings. partir → parto → part- → add -er/-ir endings. The huge payoff: any irregular eu form propagates automatically. fazer → faço → faça, faças, faça, façamos, façais, façam. dizer → digo → diga, digas, diga, digamos, digais, digam. ter → tenho → tenha, tenhas, tenha, tenhamos, tenhais, tenham. The stem you've been pronouncing for months is already the right stem.
Endings — flipped from the indicative
-ar verbs take e-vowel endings: -e, -es, -e, -emos, -eis, -em. -er and -ir verbs take a-vowel endings: -a, -as, -a, -amos, -ais, -am. So the present indicative and the present conjuntivo are mirror images: indicative fala vs. conjuntivo fale, indicative come vs. conjuntivo coma. Once you internalize the swap, the system clicks. Full paradigms: falar → fale, fales, fale, falemos, faleis, falem. comer → coma, comas, coma, comamos, comais, comam. partir → parta, partas, parta, partamos, partais, partam.
The six rebels — verbs that don't follow the eu-form rule
Six high-frequency verbs build the conjuntivo from a different stem and you simply have to learn them. ser → seja, sejas, seja, sejamos, sejais, sejam. estar → esteja, estejas, esteja, estejamos, estejais, estejam. ir → vá, vás, vá, vamos, vades, vão (the vamos form is identical to the indicative — context disambiguates). dar → dê, dês, dê, demos, deis, dêem (the circumflex on dê distinguishes it from the preposition de). saber → saiba, saibas, saiba, saibamos, saibais, saibam. querer → queira, queiras, queira, queiramos, queirais, queiram. These six show up constantly in conjuntivo contexts — wishes (queira), commands of state (seja, esteja), motion (vá), giving (dê), knowledge (saiba).
haver, poder, fazer — regular by the eu-rule, but worth a look
These three are technically regular under the eu-form rule, but they're so common in conjuntivo triggers that drilling them pays off. haver → hei isn't the eu-form used; we use the older haja, hajas, haja, hajamos, hajais, hajam (this gives the fixed expression haja paciência = 'have patience'). poder → posso → possa, possas, possa, possamos, possais, possam. fazer → faço → faça, faças, faça, façamos, façais, façam. Notice the soft cedilla ç in faça preserves the [s] sound — without it, faca would be a noun ('knife').
Spelling tweaks — keeping the consonant honest
When the indicative eu form ends in -co, -go, or -ço, the spelling adjusts in the conjuntivo to preserve the sound. ficar → fico → fique, fiques (the qu keeps the hard [k]). chegar → chego → chegue, chegues (the gu keeps the hard [g]). começar → começo → comece, comeces (the c before e is already soft, so no cedilla needed). conhecer → conheço → conheça, conheças. dirigir → dirijo → dirija, dirijas (the j keeps the soft sound). These are all about keeping the pronunciation steady when the vowel after the consonant flips from a/o to e, or vice versa.
Brazilian register: same forms, looser triggers
The forms are identical in PT and BR — fale, coma, seja, vá are written and spoken the same way. The difference is in the spelling label (conjuntivo in PT, subjuntivo in BR) and in the willingness to use the mood. Brazilian colloquial speech often slips into the indicative where the textbook wants conjuntivo: acho que ele venha (textbook) vs. acho que ele vem (heard). PT speakers tend to be stricter, especially in writing. The dêem form may also be written without the circumflex in BR after the 1990 spelling reform — both deem (BR) and dêem (still seen in PT) are accepted.
