Severn Spanish

Subjunctive II/III: General

 

 

Introduction

You are currently familiar with two moods: the indicative (which is used to say things like, “We are going to the party,” and the imperative (which is used to give commands). You have also worked a little bit in the interrogative mood, which is used to ask questions. There is another mood, used very infrequently in English but very frequently in Spanish, called the subjunctive. But before we move on to the specifics of the subjunctive itself, let’s take a closer look at what moods actually are.

 

Many people mix up tense and mood, even though they are not the same thing. It is true that both have to do with verbs, but each describes a completely different aspect of a verb. Tenses indicate time — when the action of the verb took, takes, or will take place. Moods, on the other hand, indicate the speaker’s attitude about what he or she is saying. So the present tense overlaps moods — there is a present indicative, which is the present tense you already know, and there is a present subjunctive, which occurs at the same time as the present indicative but expresses a different attitude towards the subject. The tense is the same, but the mood is not. The tricky thing about the difference between mood and tense is that either one can affect the conjugation of a verb: the present indicative is not formed in the same way as the present subjunctive. However, just as you cannot say, “I want the indicative conjugation of tener,” you cannot say, “I want the subjunctive of tener,” because there is more than one tense within each mood. You would have to specify, “I want the present subjunctive of tener.”

 

The Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive is one of the hardest things to learn when studying Spanish. It is a mood that is hardly ever used in English, but is used constantly in Spanish. The rules for knowing when to use it and when to use the indicative are many and can be complicated; they are tough even for native speakers. So take it one step at a time, and don’t worry if it seems impossible to master at first. To begin, we’ll take a look at how the subjunctive is still in use in English:

Indicative: He stays for dinner.

Subjunctive: They insist that he stay for dinner.

Indicative: You are prepared.

Subjunctive: We require that you be prepared.

Note the difference between the two forms of each verb. The subjunctive in Spanish is used in very similar ways. The most important thing to understand, right from the beginning, is that the subjunctive will almost never stand alone in a sentence. What does that mean? There are very, very few cases in which the subjunctive will be the only verb in a sentence. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, it is the verb in a dependent clause — a clause that is stuck onto a main clause in the indicative. You can see that in the subjunctive examples above. The main verb is in the indicative, and the verb in the dependent clause is in the subjunctive. A dependent clause, unlike an independent clause, cannot stand on its own as a sentence.

 

The next few sections will cover the formation and basic uses of the subjunctive. It’s okay to be frustrated — this is difficult stuff, and not something that you will master overnight. Practice and review are two excellent ways to improve.