Regarding the sentence in Imperfect Subjunctive learning notes:
Talvez fosse melhor ficarem em casa
it seems as if there is something missing:
Talvez fosse melhor que/se ficarem em casa?
How is the grammar correct without this?
Also, is there a difference between that sentence and the following?
Talvez tivessem melhor se ficarem em casa.
I remember playing around with this sentence in Deepl and I decided that if I put “que” in I had to change the tense for ficar into the past. So: Talvez fosse melhor que ficassem em casa. I didn’t get this verified, however. I’m sure Joseph, or another one of the crew, will be along shortly to advise.
Also, I presume ficarem is a personal infinitive and not a future subjunctive. I don’t know if you could reverse the sentence to get ficar into the future subjunctive. Something like: Se ficarem em casa, seria melhor, or, Se ficarem em casa, talvez seja melhor.
It is easy to gloss over such differences in one’s own language. Like, is there really a difference between “it will be better” and “it would be better”?
Talvez (maybe) is an adverb that requires its verb to be in the subjunctive; this explains the use of fosse. Then, as coljay says, ficarem is the personal infinitive, not the future subjunctive, so the use of que or se is not warranted. I find it easy to confuse future subjunctive and personal infinitive, because for regular verbs the forms are identical, and moreover they tend to be used in similar situations. Sometimes, if I am having trouble making the personal infinitive make sense in a sentence I put in “for you to stay” for ficarem.
As for your last sentence, it doesn’t appear to be proper Portuguese, as the verb ter doesn’t work in that context, and ficarem in future subjunctive (as indicated by the use of se) doesn’t either, as it’s not referring to a hypothetical future action. You could, however, say Talvez fosse melhor se ficassem em casa.
Interesting conversation. I’m not sure about your final suggestion though. My limited understanding is that, if the main verb is in the imperfect subjunctive, the other verb has to be in the conditional (although the imperfect indicative is more usually used). So: Talvez fosse melhor se ficariam em casa, or perhaps more usually Talvez fosse melhor se ficavam em casa.
@Joseph we need you!
@sheepdog Talvez fosse melhor ficarem em casa is correct as is. You could optionally add a pronoun before ficarem if you’d like to make it explicit:
Ficarem is indeed a personal infinitive form. You can only add que or se to the sentence if you replace this personal infinitive with a subjunctive form, which should be compatible with the previously used tense. These are the possibilities:
Talvez tivessem melhor se ficarem em casa is an incoherent sentence, I’m afraid.
@hancockliphook, the imperfect subjunctive + conditional combo is indeed pretty common, but not a blanket rule for all sentences. You’ll see it mostly when you want to clearly establish/discuss a condition for something else to be true. For example:
@Joseph thanks - always good to learn something new 