Language Bites, Volume I: Spanish ✔

Subjunctive Ideas

I was originally going to save subjunctive for last. However, it plays such a crucial role in the non-auxiliary versions of haber and the imperative mood that I believe that my hand has been forced to share this tense.

My mom, who is a Spanish major, once told me a story about a professor of hers who was trying to teach the class the subjunctive in Spanish. She said that he would say that English did not have subjunctive (contrary to popular belief), but that it only had subjunctive envy. This is a part of the reason that subjunctive is often the most difficult to master for us gringos.

The subjunctive is one of the three moods of Spanish, with the other two being the indicative (which we covered already) and the imperative (which will come after subjunctive). These moods are then further broken down into tenses. The ways the three moods can be summarised is this:

● Indicative refers to things that definitely happened.

● Subjunctive refers to things that could possibly happen.

● Imperative refers to things that you are commanding happen.

The second idea is confusing, so let's break it down. The subjunctive is used to convey things that you would like to happen, but have not happened. Essentially, the subjunctive deals with the hypothetical. There are three points to a subjunctive sentence in nearly all cases, which are given in this formula:

2 subjects + a relative pronoun + a WEIRDO subjunctive verb

We'll look at all of these together using this sentence:

Yo espero que mis lectores entiendan el subjuntivo. ｜I hope that my readers understand the subjunctive.

1.) Two subjects. The two subjects are underlined in this sentence - yo and mis lectores, or I and my readers. 

2.) A relative pronoun. The relative pronouns in Spanish are que, quien, and como, but que is the most common one.

3.) Two verbs: one WEIRDO and one subjunctive. WEIRDO is actually not my creation - that's from SpanishDict, which I reference a lot for learning the Subjunctive. Below are the WEIRDO verbs that trigger the subjunctive for the second clause (the one after the relative pronoun):

Wishes. Deseo que yo tuviera un novio. ｜I wish that I had a boyfriend.

Emotions. Me alegro que tu sonrías. ｜It makes me happy when you smile. (The indicative for sonreír has the same conjugation.

Impersonal Expressions (a.k.a. opinions). Es imperativo que Jenny lea este libro. ｜It is imperative that Jenny read this book.

Recommendations. Yo sugiero que tú limpies tu habitación. ｜I suggest that you clean your room.

Doubts. Dudo que ella limpiara su habitación. ｜I doubt that she has cleaned her room.

Ojalá. Anyone who talks to me on Wattpad often knows what this word means, but in case you're new here, ojalá means I hope to God, I pray to God, I hope, I pray, God willing, or hopefully. When this phrase is used, you're still expressing your desires, but it's in a more lighthearted way. Ex: Ojalá que él recuerde. ｜I hope that he remembers.

What do all of these instances have in common? They are all hypotheticals. If you hope that he remembers, does that guarantee that he will? Of course not! The same thing with emotions - you like it when she smiles, but that doesn't automatically mean she will. If this is confusing, don't worry - it takes a lot of practice to master the subjunctive completely in any language that has it. I'll provide extra examples for everything at the end. Again, if this is a difficult concept, that is fine. I actually had to look up a few things before writing this chapter to make sure I was teaching it correctly!

This chapter is a general overview of how the subjunctive mood in any tense works, but I suppose I should give some conjugations and examples as per usual. To conjugate a subjunctive present verb, you conjugate it in the first tense present indicative, remove -o, and add the subjunctive ending. If a verb is irregular in first person present tense, it will be irregular in the subjunctive conjugation as well. For example:

comer →como →com- →coma

tener →tengo →teng- →tenga

There are only six irregular verbs in the subjunctive present, which I have placed a link to in the external link zone. They're ir, dar, saber, estar, ser, and haber. Now let's get the conjugations down. As usual, the first ending is for -ar verbs and the second is for -er and -ir verbs. The way I like to remember the conjugations for present subjunctive is that the endings for nearly all persons of the -ar and -er/ir verbs are switched in the order of indicative. Here they are:

Yo: -e, -a

Tú: -es, -as

Él, ella, ud.: -e, -a

Nosotros: -emos, -amos

Vosotros: -éis, -áis

Ellos/ellas, uds.: -en, -an

Now for some more examples (finally!)

Ojalá que tú considere. ｜I hope that you will consider. (Note: Subjunctive HAS a future tense, but it is extremely uncommon and only seen in the Middle-Ages Spanish.)

Estoy segura que él esté es loco.｜I am sure that he is crazy.

Estoy feliz que tú estés aquí conmigo. ｜I am happy when you are here with me.

Deseas que yo no esté aqui. ｜You wish that I was not here.

Quiero que tú hables. ｜I want you to speak.

Seguro que su voz sea bonita. ｜I am sure that her voice is beautiful. 

Desean que tú comas. ｜They want you to eat.

Le gusta que tú canta a él. ｜He likes it when you sing to him.

Me duele que él me ignore. ｜It hurts when he ignores me.

Espero que eras veraz. ｜I hope that you are truthful.

Ojalá que él me vea. ｜Hopefully he notices me.

(Here's an extra challenge: look through these ten examples and identify what WEIRDO verb/verb idea is presented here!)