THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR SLOVAK STUDENTS IN LEARNING THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD IN PORTUGUESE

Abstract

The subjunctive mood is a particularly challenging issue for Slovak users of Portuguese, primarily because it doesn't exist in our language. Although university students learn subjunctive mood tenses for several years, we know from teaching experience that even students in their final semesters who have a good knowledge of Portuguese often have doubts about its correct use, and even try to avoid it in oral discourse out of fear of making mistakes. In this article, we therefore highlight the most prominent problems that Slovak students encounter when acquiring the subjunctive mood. We also provide a series of example sentences to help students better understand the particularities and subtleties of this verbal mood, and present exercise types that will help consolidate the knowledge they have acquired in practice.