Final subordinating conjunctions (conjunções subordinativas finais) describe the purpose of the event or action.
parato
a fim dein order to
porquebecause
Indeed, porque can be both a causal and final conjunction. It all depends on if we’re talking about cause (why something happened) or purpose (reason for doing something).
Note: The classification of para as a conjunction in this context is not consensual, with a number of sources formally classifying it as a preposition still. The practical use of the word, demonstrated below, is not affected by these differences in understanding.
Examples:
Eu vou ao escritório para falar com ela.I go to the office to speak with her.
Estudo português porque quero morar em PortugalI study Portuguese because I want to live in Portugal
A empresa investiu em painéis solares a fim de reduzir as suas emissõesThe company invested in solar panels in order to reduce its emissions
A fim de is a conjunction that you’re more likely to find in more formal settings, or when reading an article or watching the news. In everyday conversations, both para or porque are much more common conjunctions.
Comments
Ola Rui & Joel. Are the two; para / a fim de, possibly exchangeable in the given examples?
Olá, Myrna. Yes, they are 🙂 Two different options for saying just about the same thing (with “para” being the predominant choice).
Are “por isso” and “a fim de” synonyms or is there a difference in meaning/usage?
Thanks!
Matt
Olá! “Por isso” is different from “a fim de” and they are not interchangeable. “Por isso” corresponds to “so” or “for that reason”, while “a fim de” corresponds to “in order to”.
Hi! Are these conjunctions always followed by personal infinitive, in the absence of ‘que’? In these examples it is not distinguishable from impersonal, hence the question.
Both the personal and impersonal infinitive can be used after these conjunctions (without “que”), as applicable 🙂
While you have placed commas in the two English translations of your sample sentences, I wouldn’t write those sentences that way in English. I’d leave the commas out. In Portuguese, are the commas necessary in these sentences? It feels odd…
The commas are not required in the Portuguese sentences, although they can be optionally added. For the sake of alignment, we have removed the commas from both languages. Thanks for your comment!
With the sentence “eu vou ao escritório para falar com ela”. Could you say eu vou ao escritório falar com ela? I’m wondering because falar means to speak and it seams like the para is unnecessary
Yes, we can also say “Eu vou ao escritório falar com ela”, because the preposition isn’t essential here.
Let me just clarify that “falar” simply means “speak”. “To” is often added to verb translations like this just to make it clear that it’s an infinitive form. So, when we say “para falar”, we’re just saying “to speak”, not “to to speak” 🙂
Wait … is “para” here a subordinating conjunction or a preposition?
Good catch. The Learning Note doesn’t currently get into this level of detail, but strictly speaking, “para” tends to still be formally classified as a preposition in this context by a good number of grammarians (not with full consensus, as far as I know). For the sake of clarity, we can add a note to the article about this.
Thanks for the clarification, Joseph. Keep up the great work 👍