In the unit about the verb haver, I have the following flash cards:
Não houve hipótese de falar no assunto (there was no chance to talk about the subject) Não havia maneira de falar com ele (there was no way of speaking to him)
I don’t understand why the first of these is in pretérito perfeito and the second in pretérito imperfeito. And has gotten to the point where I simply guess when either of those or similar flashcards come up.
Secondly, is hipótese and maneira interchangeable in the sense of “having a way to do something / having a chance to do something” ?
In the examples you’ve provided it would not be possible to definitively say which of houve and havia is correct without additional context. Either one could be correct in either sentence, depending on the intent of the speaker.
Basically, houve refers to an action in the past that ended in the past: houve → “there was (that one time)”. Havia refers to a situation or state of being in the past: havia → “there was”, “there used to be”, etc
The first sentence is implying that in that particular moment in time, there was no chance to talk about the subject. The second sentence suggests a situation in the past. Circumstances being what they were, there was no way to speak to him.
As for the distinction between hipótese and maneira, hipótese has the connotation of possibility: there was no possibility of talking about the subject. Maneira refers to a way, or a means of doing something. There wasn’t any way to speak with him.
Thank you very much @azafran341 for taking the time to write that detailed response.
I will focus on remembering the difference as you have explained and stop marking it as an error when I pick the “wrong” one on the flashcards, where there is no extra context.
Thank you also for explaining hipótese vs maneira. I like the explanation about a connotation of possibility, that is sufficiently close to my understanding of the English hypothesis to make it easy to remember.
@azafran341 already wrote a great summary. “Houve” really reinforces that you’re talking about a fully closed past situation, with a certain distant outlook. You can think of “havia” as being more narrative and in a way pulling you closer to that past time again, like reliving a memory.
We do want to avoid situations where your answer is unfairly marked incorrect when it’s in fact also possible. We’ll either add some indications to narrow down the answer or give room to multiple correct options. We need to check this manually one exercise at a time, so there are always some that we miss - sorry about that. Feel free to continue reporting this kind of issue to us!